If you’re a regular reader of this site, please read this post.

We’re about to kick off our annual Prime sign up drive. We’ve got a lot of critical news coming up over the next 2 to 3 months – Russia, the midterms and more. So we are going to do our best to keep this one short. But this is an absolutely critical one for us as an organization. This is a key part of the bigger shift in our business and publishing model I described earlier this month. We’ve gotten most of the way to where we need to get with our Prime numbers – we’re getting close to 28,000 subscribers. But we’re not there yet.

So here’s the pitch I need to make. I frequently talk to readers who tell me they’ve been meaning to sign up for Prime but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. If that’s you, please take the time to sign up in this drive. Just take the plunge. Now is the time. It’s easy. It’s cheap. It’s hugely important to our future as an organization. Simple as that.

President Trump just released a letter he has sent to state and local leaders across the country (Governors, Lt. Governors, State Attorneys General, Mayors, State Legislators, Sheriffs) asking them to use “letters, public statements, op-eds, resolutions and events” to defend ICE and CBP against a “nationwide campaign of smears, insults, and attacks by politicians shamelessly catering to the extreme elements in our society that desire lawlessness and anarchy.”

Letter after the jump …

The Washington Post just published the full text of a memo Bret Kavanaugh wrote in August 1998 about questioning then-President Clinton as the country hurtled toward impeachment. Most attention will focus on the list of sexually explicit questions he suggested asking the president when he was interviewed by the Independent Counsel’s Office. You can see those here. To me though, those are not the most telling. It’s what comes before the sex questions.

Over the weekend, before the Don McGahn story started driving fevered speculation, the Post published an article about Elliott Broidy, the venture capitalist and GOP fundraiser who is already tied up in the Cohen/Hush Money saga as well as the Russia probe. This story detailed investigations into Broidy allegedly trying to get paid to fix federal criminal investigations in the US for interests in Malaysia and China. To me though, the most notable part of the story, is that the investigation is run by the DOJ Public Integrity Section, not the Special Counsel’s Office.

Let’s step back and consider a few cases.

From one perspective we should ignore it. But from a deeper perspective it’s important to notch each step the President makes in the direction of cheap neighborhood gangsters and would be tyrants. His latest attack on the Mueller Special Counsel’s office refers to them as “angry Democrat thugs.” It goes to the point I made last week. We know Trump is guilty, as civic and public matter if not a narrowly legal one. We’re just having a hard time coming to grips with the fact.

Some of us are blessed to live several lives in a single lifetime. Longevity is usually a prerequisite. But it goes far beyond that. Uri Avnery, Irgun fighter, tabloid publisher, peace activist, was one of those people. He’s died at the age of 94. Here’s his obituary in Ha’aretz. If you’re not familiar with him, it’s a life worth learning about.

Our reporters are back at the courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia where lawyers for both sides continue to anxiously await a verdict in Paul Manafort’s financial crimes trial. Here’s more on that and on other stories we’re following. (Updated.)

If you find yourself wondering where the “truth isn’t truth” meme started …

President's lawyer yells "Truth isn't truth." Things get more meta from there. pic.twitter.com/JZ2AYyMnAK

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) August 19, 2018

I’ve mentioned several times the inscrutable story of George Papadopoulos, particularly his and his wife’s turning against the plea agreement he made last fall and her going on a media tour associating herself with all the “Deep State” conspiracy theories now ubiquitous on Fox News. Last night we got the Special Counsel’s sentencing recommendation. It just deepens the mystery. But it also sheds some light on what might be behind Mangiante’s recent claims and public statements.

Let’s start with the basics of what are contained in the document.

Interested in voting rights? The ugly and comic history of right wing fables about “voter fraud”. Here’s Rick Perlstein and Livia Gershon on how the GOP has been weaponizing “voter fraud” myths for decades to target minority voting. It’s Part 2 of of 2018 series on Democracy and Voting Rights.

Manafort jury asks to go home early today. Deliberations will continue the rest of this afternoon and resume Monday. Here’s the latest.

A new note from the jury in the Manafort trial. We’re waiting to hear more …

Reports of the new note came shortly after a hearing on news orgs’ request to unseal records in the case, including the names of jurors. Alice Ollstein reports.