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Kathy Griffin has been a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump for years, and that hasn't stopped during his recent court appearances.
After two of his sons testified as witnesses last week, Trump took the stand on Monday in the $250 million civil fraud trial in New York. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, filed the lawsuit against Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and the Trump Organization, and she is seeking to prevent the Trump family from ever conducting business in the state again.
Before the trial started last month, Judge Arthur Engoron had already found Trump liable of "persistent and repeated" fraud. The trial will now determine the penalties the Trump family will have to pay and address the other six claims, including falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, insurance fraud and conspiracy.
Mary's post shared a video of Trump in the courtroom with his attorneys, moments before he was set to take the stand and be questioned by the judge. She captioned the post: "Donald is testifying RIGHT NOW. Will he:
1) perjure himself
2) attack the judge
3) plead the fifth
4) pout
5) all of the above."
Griffin shared the post to her own X account, adding the comment: "Numbers 1, 2 and 4...FOR SURE."
Newsweek reached out to representatives of Griffin and Trump for comment via email on Tuesday.
People went to the comment section of Griffin's post to share their thoughts on the matter, with many agreeing with the comedian.
"Already has done 1,2 and 4!" one person commented.
"I would be surprised if he knew HOW to plead the Fifth..." said another.
A third added: "Damn! That face sure put me off my coffee. He is so disgusting."
However, not everyone was happy with her post, with one person writing: "You're a lunatic. Weren't you leaving Twitter and the country? Freaking cry baby."
As has been widely reported over the years, Griffin has been an outspoken critic of Trump, notably facing unrelenting criticism when she posed with the severed head of an effigy of the then-president in 2017.
Trump was a prominent voice in the backlash against Griffin, writing online at the time: "Kathy Griffin should be ashamed of herself. My children, especially my 11-year-old son, Barron, are having a hard time with this. Sick."
Celebrity photographer Tyler Shields captured the graphic photo, which caused a public outcry and forced Griffin to apologize.
"I sincerely apologize. I am just now seeing the reaction of these images[...]I went way too far. The image is too disturbing. I understand how it offends people. It wasn't funny. I get it," the comedian said in a video posted to social media in May 2017.
She later retracted her apology, saying during an appearance on ABC's The View in 2018: "I take the apology back. F*** him[...]I'm not holding back on this family. This family is different. I've been through the mill."
Griffin went on to explain her reasons for taking back her apology, as she said: "The First Amendment is important. It's the first for a reason."
She added: "My mom got death threats in her retirement village, and my sister got death threats in her hospital bed, and I lost her to cancer—that's why I shaved my head. That's how vicious it can be."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Billie is a Newsweek Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is reporting on film and TV, trending news, and the entertainment industry. She has extensively covered pop culture, women's rights, and lifestyle topics throughout her career and has a strong interest in the effect entertainment news has on everyday life. Originally from Sydney, Billie cut her teeth as a Femail reporter for Daily Mail Australia before moving to London in 2019. She joined Newsweek in 2023 from the Mirror and has previously written for Metro.co.uk, Daily Star, Popsugar, Fabulous, and Insider. She studied Media (Communications and Journalism) at the University of New South Wales. Languages: English.
You can get in touch with Billie by emailing [email protected], or by following her on X at @billie_sd.
Billie is a Newsweek Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is reporting on film and... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here. | US Political Corruption |
In a scene that could have been pulled from a Hollywood courtroom thriller, Donald Trump was called to the witness box last week and accused of threatening a clerk of the court.
The former president had already been fined for attacking the judge’s clerk. Now he had done it again and the usually jocular Judge Arthur Engoron angrily threatened to lock Trump up. “Why should there not be severe sanctions for this blatant, dangerous disobeyal of a clear court order?” asked Engoron.
Trump escaped with a $10,000 fine – this time – but it was a moment that ripped back the curtain on the dueling trials that have been taking place in a Manhattan courtroom over the last four weeks. The first of a series of trials Trump faces in the coming months and one that will probably set the pattern for the messy, high-stakes trials ahead.
The official trial, for which Engoron is the judge, is focused on whether Trump knowingly inflated the value of his properties to boost his net worth. Engoron has already ruled that the Trump Organization cooked the books – a ruling that could end Trump’s New York business empire. The court case is about what punishment Trump his adult sons and other Trump executives should face. This is a civil case, Trump will not go to jail no matter what the judge rules. Nor is there a jury to impress. Engoron is making the final decision based on the court hearings.
The second – unofficial – trial is being fought in the court of public opinion. The media circus arrives every time Trump appears in court he attacks the “witch-hunt”. His lawyers cry foul, shout at witnesses and demand the case is thrown out. The facts of the case seem almost incidental. For Trump and his lawyers, it is clear – often to the anger of the judge – that the official trial is less important to them than the political one.
“A lot of him thinks that the trials are how he’s going to win re-election,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton and author of The Presidency of Donald J Trump: A First Historical Assessment. “He is going to be there and show himself under attack again and again to make the point that he’s an anti-establishment figure wherever they get him.”
But even for someone as media savvy as Trump, juggling the trials is proving difficult and may point to real problems ahead. Treading the fine line between the judicial and political dynamics demands restraint, a quality Trump has never displayed. If he goes too far, the consequences could be serious.
After the trial’s first day in early October, Trump posted on social media, mocking a picture of Engoron’s law clerk with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, calling her Schumer’s “girlfriend”.
Trashing his opponents and setting his huge fan base on them is a tactic Trump has used for years. But in a court, the stakes are higher. Engoron has the power to throw Trump in jail for violating a gag order barring him from speaking about court staff publicly. Engoron, who often cracks jokes from the bench, struck a serious tone when discussing Trump’s gag order violation. The judge has repeatedly said that he is “protective” of his staff, particularly in an “overheated” political climate.
“I don’t want anyone to be killed,” Engoron said on Wednesday as Trump sat with his lawyers, letting a long pause settle in the courtroom.
It was no surprise that this dramatic moment took place during Michael Cohen’s week in court. Once master and loyal servant, Trump and Cohen are now bitter foes. The appearance of Trump’s former lawyer generated massive publicity for the trial – which has been through a dry, technical patch recently. But it also – once again – highlighted the very different battles playing out in Manhattan’s supreme court.
For the actual fraud case, Cohen’s testimony was simple: He testified that Trump had wanted him to mark up the values of his assets on financial statements to increase the value of his net worth. Cohen has said this repeatedly since he turned on his former boss and his congressional testimony in 2019 inspired the case the New York attorney general, Letitia James, brought against the Trump Organization and that Engoron is now overseeing. But the actual substance of Cohen’s dramatic appearance is unlikely to decide how the judge rules.
For the political trial, Cohen’s testimony was far more important. Trump’s lawyers used it as an opportunity to wax poetic about how Cohen had once admired the president, making Cohen admit he read Trump’s bestseller The Art of the Deal twice while in college and that he, at one point, said he would take a bullet for Trump. That Cohen eventually turned on Trump proves that he is a serial liar who can’t be trusted on the stand, they argued.
“The attorney general is trying to cover for an extraordinary witness who has no credibility on the stand,” Trump lawyer Christopher Kise said during back-and-forth between lawyers and the judge. Trump’s lawyers called Cohen a bitter perjurer who was now living off his connection to Trump. Cohen was such a flawed witness that the case should be dismissed, they argued.
For all their shouting, Engoron emphasized that he did not even consider Cohen a “key witness”. After weeks of pouring through documents and interviews with lawyers and accountants, Engoron said: “There’s enough evidence from this case to fill this courtroom.”
Prosecutors from the attorney general’s office neatly described what was going on after Trump’s lawyers once again attacked Cohen’s testimony. This was “a trial within a trial within a trial” they said – and one that is unlikely to sway the judgment.
For Trump, that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s playing by the strategy that got him to the White House: maximum outrage and publicity to fire up his base as a money-raising marketing tool.
How long Trump’s strategy can last will be tested over the next year, and not only because the presidential election is next November. Trump has five other court cases on his heels, including some that are based on criminal charges that could lead to prison time if he is convicted.
Lawyers for those cases are watching this case closely as they weigh their tactics for the fights ahead. Susan Hoffinger, who is leading the Manhattan district attorney office’s case against Trump over hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, was in the courtroom during Cohen’s two days of testimony. So was her opponent, Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche.
“In many ways, I think this [case] is the least of his worries, although it’s going to put him out of business,” said Gregory Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University. “If this had been the case against Joe Blow, there would be no press there, there would be no people taking down this stuff. There would be no attacks on the court clerks and the judge. So that’s just the Hollywood nature of this crazy trial.” | US Political Corruption |
McCarthy to endorse Biden impeachment inquiry, setting up possible vote
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will endorse an impeachment inquiry into President Biden this week, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill, setting the scene for a formal vote in the chamber — even though it remains unclear that there is enough support to launch a formal investigation.
McCarthy intends to tell Republican lawmakers that House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have found enough information to back up the need for a formal impeachment inquiry, the source said.
He will also argue that the launching for a formal inquiry will aid in their effort to try and get a hold of bank records and documents related to the Biden family.
McCarthy plans to call an impeachment inquiry the “logical next step” in the GOP-led investigations, the source said.
The House GOP conference is set to meet behind closed doors twice this week: on Wednesday and on Thursday. During Thursday’s meeting, Comer and Jordan are scheduled to speak about their investigations.
Punchbowl News first reported on McCarthy’s plans.
Republicans in the House have been divided over the issue of impeachment, and the issue of launching an inquiry.
There appears to be more support for launching an inquiry, but it could still be a difficult vote for House Republicans representing districts won by Biden. Democrats are sure to make it part of their attacks in next year’s campaigns.
DEVELOPING
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Congress |
Washington — The House is set to decidefuture in Congress on Friday in the wake of an explosive report from the House Ethics Committee that convinced many of his colleagues to change their mind on expelling him.
It's the lower chamber's third attempt since May to oust the New York Republican and comes two weeks after the House Ethics Committee released a damning report finding "" that Santos repeatedly broke the law.
Santos would be just theto be expelled and the first in more than 20 years. Rep. James Traficant was removed from office in 2002 after being convicted of 10 corruption-related felonies.
The House debated the resolution to expel him on Thursday, and a final vote is set for Friday morning.
Santos' surprise victory in the 2022 midterm elections helped Republicans capture control of the House, but he quickly became an embarrassment for the party when he was found to have fabricated or exaggerated large portions of his biography.
He also attracted the attention of federal investigators, who charged him with fraud, money laundering and other crimes in May. The scope of the case expanded in October, when he was hit with more charges accusing him of stealing his campaign donors' identities and racking up thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on their credit cards, falsifying campaign finance reports, money laundering and more. He has pleaded not guilty to allhe now faces.
His potential ouster comes despite some Republicans' concerns over the party's already slim majority in the House and reservations by some lawmakers about expelling Santos when has not been convicted of a crime.
Santos hashe would wear his expulsion "like a badge of honor."
"We live in times where political expedience is more important than process," Santos said last week. "Due process is dead. Due process has evaporated."
The House Ethics Committee report on Santos' alleged wrongdoing
The Ethics Committeea scathing 56-page report on Nov. 16 that detailed a broad array of alleged misconduct. According to investigators, Santos allegedly stole money from his campaign, reported fictitious loans, deceived donors and engaged in fraudulent business dealings.
The situation, the report said, "is unprecedented in many respects."
"While it is not uncommon for Committee investigations to involve multiple allegations and a pattern of misconduct, the sheer scope of the violations at issue here is highly unusual and damning," it said.
According to the report, Santos funneled large sums of money through his campaign and businesses. Investigators said he used the funds to pay for Botox injections and make purchases at high-end stores like Hermès and Ferragamo. They said he used campaign money to make payments on the adult website OnlyFans, and for meals, parking, travel and rent. He also allegedly diverted money to pay down his personal credit cards.
Santos "sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience," the report said, adding that "his misrepresentations and lack of transparency have continued during his tenure in Congress."
Noting the slew of embellishments that Santos repeatedly made about his education, career, family history and even the death of his mother, investigators said his "own campaign staff viewed him as a 'fabulist,' whose penchant for telling lies was so concerning that he was encouraged to seek treatment."
Investigators also alleged Santos repeatedly ignored his staffers' warnings about issues with his campaign's bookkeeping. His campaign's ex-treasurer, Nancy Marks,to a scheme to embellish his campaign finance reports. While Santos has blamed Marks for the campaign finance violations, investigators said Santos "was aware of how she was reporting personal loans" and "he was actively involved in the campaign's day-to-day finances."
The effort to expel Santos
The third attempt to expel Santos comes just weeks after heto oust him from Congress.
In May, Santos survived his first expulsion attempt, when Democrats sought to remove him from Congress after he was first charged. Republicans blocked that effort and instead referred the matter to the Ethics Committee.
Five GOP lawmakers from the Empire State — all facing competitive races next year — renewed the effort to expel him in October after he was hit with more charges, calling it a "moral" issue that transcended short-term political considerations. But the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed under the Constitution to oust a member, since most Republicans and 31 Democrats withheld support for punishing him while the Ethics Committee investigation and his criminal trial proceeded.
The release of the Ethics Committee report opened the floodgates for lawmakers to embrace expelling Santos. Republican Rep. Michael Guest of Mississippi, the chairman of the Ethics Committee,to oust him before lawmakers left Washington for Thanksgiving. Once the House returned, Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California, as "privileged," meaning the House would be required to vote on it within two days.
"This forces a vote this week," Garcia told reporters Tuesday, saying he had doubts that Republicans would actually move forward with a vote on Guest's resolution.
But Republicans did move forward. GOP Rep. Anthony D'Esposito of New York brought up Guest's resolution as privileged, and a vote was scheduled for Friday.
"This is bullying," SantosThursday of Guest's measure.
Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee, said later Thursday that Santos "is not a victim."
"He is a perpetrator of a massive fraud on his constituents and the American people," she said.
Santos has long rebuffed calls to resign. Doing so now, he said, would amount to him admitting to the allegations detailed in the Ethics Committee's report while also giving his colleagues an out.
"I hear a lot the line, 'I encourage Rep. Santos to resign. Do the right thing, which is resign.' What I hear is people don't want to take this vote," Santos said Thursday.
Santosa day after the report's release that he would not run for reelection in 2024 after all.
His criminal trial is set to begin Sept. 9.
for more features. | US Congress |
Mapping mistakes — Errors suggest ISPs are claiming to serve more homes than they actually do. Getty Images | Matt Anderson Photography Nevada's US senators say the Federal Communications Commission's new, more detailed broadband maps have tens of thousands of mistakes in their state alone.
"Nevada’s Office of Science, Innovation, & Technology (OSIT) has found over 20,000 purported broadband-serviceable locations on the map that they believe overstate coverage. They also have found incorrect information on the quality of service available to some locations and in some cases, missing serviceable locations," Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) wrote in a letter to the FCC last week.
The FCC's new broadband-availability information shows which addresses have service based on data submitted by Internet service providers, so mistakes would indicate that broadband companies are claiming to serve more homes and businesses than they actually do. The senators' reference to "missing serviceable locations" also suggests the FCC failed to include every home or business location in its list of addresses.
The new address-level data replaces the FCC's previous maps that were based on the Form 477 data-collection program in which ISPs reported whether they were able to offer service in each census block. The old program essentially let ISPs count an entire census block as served, even if they could serve just one home in the area.
With the new program, the FCC says fixed broadband providers are required to report "where they have actually built out their broadband network infrastructure and to which they either currently provide service or could perform a standard broadband installation." A "standard installation" means that service can be deployed within 10 business days "with no charges or delays attributable to the extension of the network of the provider."
Vermont also called map inaccurate
Nevada government officials aren't alone in saying the new, more detailed map has lots of mistakes. The Vermont Community Broadband Board (VCBB) last month urged residents "to check their addresses on the FCC National Broadband Map and file a challenge if the information is incorrect."
“The FCC map poses a challenge to Vermont's broadband build-out," VCBB Executive Director Christine Hallquist said in a press release. "The map is missing or incorrectly lists the location of over 60,000 broadband-serviceable locations. The map also lists service availability levels far beyond what the state has found through its mapping and what we are hearing about from residents." The VCBB said "correcting addresses that are incorrectly listed as served at speeds of 25/3Mbps or greater by a wired or licensed wireless provider could mean millions of additional federal dollars to build out 100/100Mbps fiber broadband across the state."
It's not surprising that the map has mistakes. The FCC released the first version of the upgraded National Broadband Map in November and invited people to review the map and submit challenges to correct errors. You can search for broadband availability at specific addresses here and use that page to submit challenges.
The FCC voted in August 2019 to require ISPs to submit accurate data about where they offer service. Congress followed up by imposing a law with similar requirements and provided $98 million for the mapping overhaul in December 2020. The first collection of address-availability data from ISPs under the new program finished in early September.
Senators want more time for challenges
The new maps will be used by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to distribute $42.45 billion in grants from the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program created by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. While the FCC will review possible mistakes and make corrections on a rolling basis, the NTIA urged people to submit challenges by January 13, 2023, and said it intends to announce grant allocations by June 30, 2023, "using the most up-to-date version of the FCC maps as a guide."
But Nevada's US senators said the number of mistakes makes it clear that the US government should give states more time to challenge the data. Rosen and Cortez Masto urged the FCC to "work with NTIA to extend the availability and location challenge process by an additional 60 days to give our state broadband office and others the time needed to verify and submit accurate data."
The senators urged the FCC to "consider allowing our broadband office to review technical documentation that broadband providers submitted to the FCC to verify whether an area is served or unserved." That data would help Nevada officials "verify whether providers are actually serving our communities with the services they say they are offering," they wrote.
The senators also wrote that Nevada's "State Broadband Office has concerns with the current challenge process, through which states can challenge the draft maps, as it is based on assumptions that put the onus on consumers to proactively engage with providers." | US Federal Policies |
The Louisiana-based leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives is getting a big thing absolutely right: They want a budget process that works.
That would be good for the country, and good for Louisiana too.
Our state is heavily dependent on federal spending in a multitude of ways, more so than many others. That's one reason why Louisiana does not need a new government shutdown, as is still threatened despite the ascension of north Louisiana U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson to the speaker’s chair.
How to avoid it? Well, who can predict what will happen in a House where the GOP caucus is ruled by a handful of swing votes; Johnson himself only became speaker after the history-making ouster of a sitting GOP speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, by a small, fringe faction.
The national press is skeptical that Johnson, a relative neophyte, can ride the tigers of ambition and ideology loose in the House chamber.
We are hopeful, in part because Johnson and Steve Scalise of Jefferson Parish, the House's second-in-command, are trying to focus on bringing back “regular order” to the budget process.
That two-word phrase isn’t just bureaucratic in nature. It implies a House that pays attention to its formal duties, including the most important, weighing budget decisions for the nation.
It also implies not going off onto ideological tangents and playing the endless political games that have brought Congress into disrepute.
Johnson was wrong to push an emergency measure that tied aid to our ally Israel to a GOP hobbyhorse, cutting the Internal Revenue Service budget, as some anti-government Republicans want to do. That just adds to the deficit, as it lets more high-income tax cheats defeat the system; for most of us, it just means the IRS can’t hire enough people to answer the darn phone.
Cut the games. If you promise regular order, let’s see it in action.
As majority leader, Scalise is moving more of the spending bills that comprise the budget through the process but two of them faltered last week because of continuing dissent from the hard-right faction in his caucus. A government shutdown still might loom, and that almost always hurts Republicans politically, although the House GOP's circular firing squad might still find that an attractive in-your-face gesture.
The Senate isn’t immune from partisan debates, but its leadership has proposed a more sensible and comprehensive emergency aid bill; no one believes that political “riders” like the IRS cut will go anywhere there.
So are we going to define “regular order” as throwing all sorts of unattainable sloganeering into budget bills? Even worse, in critical national security decisions? We don’t think that’s reasonable, but clearly the clock is ticking and some sort of temporary spending measure must be passed ahead of the Nov. 17 deadline.
We urge the House to get with the program and enact a budget extension without drama, and then get on with the more thoughtful deliberation. | US Congress |
Jack Smith: Trump’s New Bid to Halt D.C. Proceedings ‘Confirm His Overriding Interest in Delaying Both Trials at Any Cost’
Legal filings Wednesday night and Thursday morning show rising tensions over the former president's March trial date in Washington, D.C., and his May trial date in South Florida
Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors on Thursday morning slammed Donald Trump's legal team for trying to delay both of his federal criminal cases and warned one of the judges in the middle of the controversy that she may be "manipulated" by the former president's arguments.
The two-page filing from Smith counselor Jay Bratt landed before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in South Florida and sought to bring her attention to a new motion from the Trump team submitted less than 12 hours earlier in his Washington, D.C, criminal case.
In that letter, Trump's team on Wednesday night asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to immediately halt all proceedings in the former president's election-interference case until she renders an opinion on the pre-trial question of whether a chief executive of the United States is immune from criminal proceedings.
Bratt's complaint: Trump's lawyers had "failed to disclose" their plans to file that motion to stay the D.C. proceedings during a separate hearing before Judge Cannon earlier Wednesday where the president's lawyers were raising concerns over scheduling conflicts between the two upcoming federal criminal trials.
Cannon had signaled during the Wednesday hearing she was open to changing her May trial where the former president faces felony charges he mishandled classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructed the federal investigation alongside two other co-defendants.
"As the Government argued to the Court yesterday, the trial date in the District of Columbia case should not be a determinative factor in the Court’s decision whether to modify the dates in this matter," Bratt wrote on Thursday morning to Cannon.
Bratt added: "Defendant Trump’s actions in the hours following the hearing in this case illustrate the point and confirm his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost. This Court should [not] allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion."
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The word "not" wasn't included in the final sentence of Bratt's filed brief, but a spokesman for Smith's office confirmed to The Messenger on Thursday it's absence was a typo.
Cannon, an appointee of Trump, didn't make an immediate ruling on the May trial schedule but noted she was open to making adjustments because of how close it was to the start of the D.C. case in March. “I’m having trouble seeing how that can be accomplished in a compressed period of time given the realities we’re facing," the judge said.
Trump faces a total of 91 state and federal felony counts in four jurisdictions, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
His federal trial in D.C. is scheduled to begin March 4, and Judge Chutkan has so far resisted Trump's overtures to delay her schedule due to the former president's 2024 White House campaign.
A separate New York City criminal case connected to allegations of hush money payments to an adult film actress during the 2016 presidential campaign is set to start on March 25, though the lead prosecutor has signaled he's willing to move the start date.
The trial in the Florida documents case is currently scheduled to begin on May 20, 2024 — Cannon is considering a request from Trump's team to delay the proceedings until after the 2024 presidential election.
In Georgia, Trump and his 14 remaining co-defendants charged in a criminal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election results do not have a trial date yet. But the judge there has scheduled a Dec. 1 hearing to consider several motions to dismiss the case.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott is considering new elections in the state's Harris County after it was discovered that a shortage of ballot paper was more widespread than officials had estimated it to be.
On Tuesday, Abbott said the shortage was so much larger than initially believed that it "may have altered the outcome of elections."
"It may necessitate new elections," the governor tweeted. "It WILL necessitate new LAWS that prevent Harris Co. from ever doing this again."
An analysis of equipment and voter turnout records conducted by local news outlet KHOU 11 found that 121 voting centers lacked sufficient ballot paper needed to cover voter turnout—more than double the number of centers that Harris County estimated to be affected. The county had previously said 46 to 68 centers ran out of their allotted ballot paper.
In a statement sent to Newsweek, the Texas secretary of state's office said that it was first notified of the alleged improprieties in Harris County shortly after Election Day in 2022 and that the information was referred to the Texas attorney general's office and the Harris County district attorney's office for investigation.
Because Harris County is already subject to additional post-elections audits, the secretary of state's office said that "we have been collecting even more information to ultimately provide the public with greater clarity on the root causes of the issues witnessed in Harris County during the 2022 General Election."
The Harris County Elections Administration released a preliminary report last month acknowledging the difficulties on Election Day, but said that a full analysis will take months to complete.
It did not provide an explanation for why voting centers ran out of ballot paper.
Abbott's call to legislate new measures to prevent a paper shortage on Election Day was applauded by other Republicans, like the Harris County Republican Party (HCRP) and Arizona's former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who called on election officials in her state to do the same.
Lake, who lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs by more than 17,000 votes, has continued to refuse to accept the results of the November election, even after she exhausted all her viable legal options to overturn the results of the election. In December, a lower court judge ruled against Lake's lawsuit seeking to be declared the winner of the gubernatorial election.
However, Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor at the University of Houston, told Newsweek that while the elections in Texas have problems, calling for an election re-do would be "a dramatic and largely unprecedented step considering the scope of the mistakes made in Harris County." | US Local Elections |
Those who harass, intimidate or use force on election workers performing their duties in Nevada could soon face up to four years in prison under a new law signed by the Western swing state’s Republican governor on Tuesday.
The law is meant to deter attacks against those in state and local election offices who have faced increased scrutiny for doing their jobs, Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said Tuesday. Threats and initimidation of election workers had ramped up significantly in Nevada and across the country amid falsehoods and conspiracy theories about foul play denying former President Donald Trump victory in the 2020 presidential race.
Other states have taken similar steps to better protect election officials in recent years, including Maine, Vermont, Washington, New Mexico and Oklahoma.
The bill, passed unanimously through both chambers of Nevada’s Democratic-controlled Legislature, was a core campaign promise from Aguilar, who cited an exodus of election workers across the state due in part to increased threats. The law also makes it a felony to disseminate personal information about an election worker without their consent.
"I want election workers to know that the secretary of state's office has their back," Aguilar said at the ceremony.
Aguilar stood alongside Republican Gov. Lombardo at the bill signing ceremony — a pair that have recently sparred over Lombardo's proposal to require voter ID, to which Aguilar has opposed and legislative Democrats have described as a non-starter since the beginning of session.
Over half of the top election officials across Nevada’s 17 counties stepped down between the 2020 election and 2022 midterms, with several citing election threats. Many of their staff members had resigned too, along with an exodus of workers in the secretary of state’s election department leading up to the 2022 midterms. That was due both to election burnout and better opportunities elsewhere, the office said at the time.
Aguilar’s campaign vow to protect election workers and restore trust in elections became a foil to his opponent, Republican Jim Marchant, who led a nationwide coalition of secretary of state candidates seeking to discredit the electoral process. Several election deniers were defeated in Nevada statewide elections despite the split-ticket outcome. Lombardo was endorsed by former President Donald Trump but pushed back against his false claims of a stolen 2020 election, saying there was a "modicum" of fraud but not enough to sway an election.
Another bill that recently made it to Lombardo's desk would criminalize so-called "fake electors," or anybody who signed certificates falsely stating when a candidate wins a certain state to the National Archives — as six Nevada GOP members did in 2020. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray said the governor's office declined to take a specific stance on that legislation, which includes a higher-level felony for the fake electors than the bill signed Tuesday.
Aguilar’s bill became particularly timely after a federal court acquitted a Las Vegas man of charges from threatening calls he made to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office the morning after the Jan. 6, 2020, attack on the Capital. The indictment alleged that Gjergi Luke Juncaj accused a woman who answered his calls of "stealing the election" and treason; said he hoped her children were molested; and said those working in her office were "all going to die."
"I can tell you, it has put a chilling effect in our office as of today," Aguilar said at a bill hearing the day after the court ruling. "Because people are afraid … They are struggling just knowing that something like this can continue to happen. And that is why this law is so needed."
Had the state law been in place at the time of the threats, "(Juncaj) would not be a free man today," Aguilar said on Tuesday,
The penalty would be one to four years in state prison with the possibility of probation — the same as it is to harass, intimidate or use force on voters.
The bill was amended before a state Senate vote to prohibit all state officers — including the governor, secretary of state and legislators — from campaign fundraising during the legislative session, which runs every other year from February to early June. | US Local Policies |
, Republican of Ohio, still faces an uphill climb to the House speakership, with at least 10 to 20 Republican members who oppose his nomination, CBS News has learned, based on background conversations over the weekend with six key House Republicans and more than a dozen sources familiar with the deliberations.
"At least 10 to 20," one of the House Republicans told CBS News on Sunday, while another added that that Jordan's support has grown incrementally in recent days but remains soft.
While Jordan's confidants remain optimistic that he can get to the necessary 217 votes Tuesday, when the House is scheduled to, several who are more critical of Jordan privately insisted this weekend that at about a dozen Republicans remain unwilling to support him, due to their frustrations over how , Republican of Louisiana, was treated during his speaker bid and their simmering anger over the . They also are wary of whether Jordan can handle the intensity of the challenges facing Congress in the coming months.
Jordan's outside game
Jordan has been relying on right-wing groups he has long backed, as well as allies close to former President Donald Trump. He has also counted on the support of activists, such as Amy Kremer, to win over those who were undecided this past weekend. Trump has taken calls about the speaker race but has not weighed in heavily beyond his past, leaving some close to Jordan wondering if he will help close the deal in the coming days in a way that is significant and helpful.
Some Trump allies, like former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, have told associates privately that Jordan made a strategic mistake by not bringing a vote to the floor last week. In recent days, others on the right have been urging Jordan to go to the floor this week to expose his critics in front of a national audience. Jordan's allies have said privately that he did not go to the floor last week because he wanted more time to meet with members.
Monday night meeting
Sources say Jordan will try to rally GOP members on Monday night, when House Republicans are scheduled to huddle again, arguing it's time to put this political mess behind them. But with internal GOP questions mounting — not only about Jordan's character and abilities — but about how he will handle supplemental requests from the Biden administration on aid for Israel and Ukraine, many longtime appropriators and hawks remain concerned about how he would handle those issues.
Ohio GOP, in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, was a bellwether for where many House Republicans stand, according to Republicans involved in the speaker talks.
"I think Jim Jordan will be an excellent speaker," he told moderator Margaret Brennan. "I think he'll be able to get to 217. If not, we have other leaders in the House. And certainly, if there is a need if the radical, you know, almost just handful of people in the Republican side ... to make it for us unable to be able to return to general work on the House, then I think obviously, there will be a deal we'll have to be done."
Deal on Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick Henry?
If Jordan is unable to secure enough support by Tuesday's vote, some key Jordan skeptics and veteran Republicans are now preparing to push for a bipartisan deal that would expand the ability of, Republican of North Carolina, to move legislation on Israel and government funding through his current ministerial role as speaker pro tempore.
McHenry is also being mentioned as a possible alternative to win the speakership outright, should Jordan fail to win on the floor this week. But those talks are fluid and many of his supporters are also hoping that McCarthy might see a revival if Jordan collapses.
Other potential rivals
Other names that continue to be mentioned by Republicans this past weekend as "backup options" for speaker include Rep. Tom Cole, of Oklahoma; Rep. Elise Stefanik, of New York; Rep. Tom Emmer, of Minnesota; Rep. Kevin Hern, of Oklahoma; Rep. Mike Johnson, of Louisiana; and Rep. Jodey Arrington, of Texas.
for more features. | US Congress |
I Can No Longer Justify Voting for Joe Biden in 2024
For years, Ahmed Moor rationalized voting for Democrats as the lesser of two evils. Now, Biden’s unequivocal support for Israeli war crimes has destroyed that argument for him.
It may not be obvious, but Arab Americans have never felt naturally at home in the Democratic party. I suspect that our experience tracks that of other minority groups who’ve experienced marginalization and racism here in the United States. At least since the Clinton presidency, the party’s agenda has exhibited centrist, status-quo tendencies. And for us, the status quo has been a source of harm—an ossified state of indifference to our needs and calls for justice.
I first had serious doubts about Joe Biden when I learned he self-identified as a Zionist. For me, as a Palestinian American, and for the millions of Palestinians living through apartheid, Zionism isn’t a way of seeing the world. It’s a political theory that establishes Jewish dominance over the people and land of Palestine/Israel, based on a Jewish majority in that land. It seeks to justify, unsuccessfully, repeated bouts of ethnic cleansing, occupation, and inequality before the law. By identifying himself with Zionism, Biden expressly indicated his support for the outcome of these policies: a Jewish-majority state, for Jews only. Implicitly, he endorsed the policies themselves.
Like many in the coalition of progressive minorities that drives the success of the Democratic party, I arrived at an uneasy accommodation with myself. The moral challenge many of us face in voting for the Democrats isn’t new; the Iraq war, which was supported by most of the party’s leadership, made it difficult to vote for Hillary Clinton. The conventional argument admonishing progressives to vote for the Democrats is: You have an obligation to help the poor, fight inequality, and work for climate justice, racial justice, reproductive rights, and basic democracy; there is only one party in Washington willing to make a contribution to your goals; therefore, despite Democrats’ limitations, which include excessive corporatism, an institutional affinity for Israel, a neoliberal foreign policy, and an unwillingness or inability to tax the wealthy, you should vote for the Democrats.
Call it maturity, or a pragmatism born of experience, but over the years I learned to suppress my deep discomfort with the party’s non-progressive policies to vote Democrat and keep “a lesser evil” at bay. In 2021, after voting for Jill Stein in two presidential elections, I relented and joined up. Here in Philadelphia, I ran for and won a seat as a committee person in my ward. In that capacity, I worked to turn out voters for John Fetterman. I voted for Joe Biden.
I have no intention of doing so again next year.
The past three weeks have transformed me. I’ve viewed shocking, nauseating videos documenting the genocide underway in Gaza. I’ve seen the neighborhoods I grew up in eliminated, totally. I cannot describe the pain of viewing my extended family suffer through state-sanctioned terror. I cannot describe the horror they’re experiencing, their awareness of their dehumanization, and the agonizing knowledge that they’ve been abandoned by a cynical world. Now, with Gaza in total darkness, literal and metaphorical, I find that I dread the worst. I am justified in expecting it.
Current Issue
And so my focus turns to the “lesser evil.” Since the current set of atrocities began to unfold, President Biden has worked overtime to deliver $14 billion in armaments to Israel. He has deployed two warships to the Mediterranean, a menacing specter for the Palestinians, even as their homes are being destroyed, as entire families are being buried in mass graves. His ambassador to the United Nations has rejected calls for a cease-fire and vetoed a resolution calling for one.
He has worked hard to provide support to Israel by denying the extent of the terror, and to suppress knowledge of the war crimes he’s sanctioned. He deployed his secretary of state to entreat Qatar to stop Al Jazeera’s journalists from bearing witness to Gaza’s convulsions. And he has sought to extinguish the memory of the dead by casting doubt on the number of lives lost, the number people Israel has killed.
And so I wonder: What sense is there in an argument that values a lesser evil when the evil is still so great? How can I possibly vote for a president that actively sanctions a genocide, that provides support to Israel as it destroys a people?
The simple answer is, I can’t.
My choice is not without its consequences. I live in a contested state, one that Biden barely won in 2020. What are the implications of withholding my vote? Will Trump win the presidency? How does that help Palestine and the Palestinians? And by withholding my vote, am I not hurting the poor and immigrants? Am I not contributing to our institutional decay? The end of democracy itself?
Each of us struggles with some version of the ethical challenge embedded within the act of casting an imperfect vote. Individually, as people with diverse interests and different views of what a world worth fighting for looks like, what a world worth living in could be, we compromise. We argue and we struggle to do the right thing and to push for the right thing. That’s our responsibility in a democracy; our activism cannot end on the day after the first Tuesday in November of an election year.
Yet, despite that awareness of compromise—a necessary feature of democracy—each of us defines an ethical limit to our participation, a point at which we say “I refuse.” For me, that point is now. It’s a line in the sand, drawn through the Gaza Strip, where the anguished cries of innocent people serve as pitiful dirge for the dead. It’s a line in the sand, marking the lightless graves of 3,457 children. | US Federal Elections |
President Biden must find a way to deliver student loan debt forgiveness or suffer political consequences from Democratic coalitions that pressed the White House on this issue, says Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley, this week's guest on "The Takeout" podcast.
"President Biden still needs to deliver this transformative relief," said Pressley, a prominent congresswoman and member of the so-called "Squad" of progressives and far-left Democrats. "It is very consequential. There is a great panic financial panic for borrowers. Not only is this relief deeply needed and long overdue, it is very popular. It was a motivating issue in the midterms. I'm calling on President Biden to deliver the relief to the coalition that delivered them to the White House."
Pressley called theof Mr. Biden's executive action providing loan forgiveness "tone deaf."
"I think it is callous," Pressley said of the court decision ruling Mr. Biden overstepped his legal authority in granting forgiveness of up to $10,000 for qualified student loan holders and up to $20,000 for those with loans and Pell Grants. "I think it is not in keeping with the will of the majority of the people. They continue to make history for all the wrong reasons. They are legislating from the bench."
Upwards of 43 million Americans could have qualified for the now-blocked loan forgiveness program. The Supreme Court noted the cost to implement Mr. Biden's executive action, $400 billion, would have made it the most expensive executive action in history. The court ruled the executive action exceeded authorities given the Department of Education to "waive" or "modify" debt repayment under the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act (HEROES Act).
"This is very much a racial justice issue," Pressley said. "Black and Brown students borrow and default at higher rates. And if you look at Black Americans, we've been locked out of every major federal relief program in this country from the Homestead act to the GI bill to being targeted by redlining."
Pressley said the White House must find other ways to use executive power to provide debt relief.
"Democrats get credit when we deliver," Pressley said. "Not because they read a press release, but because they feel it."
After the Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness plan, Mr. will also not be charged interest on their loans as long as they make their monthly payments, ensuring that their loan balance will not increase if they're making their payments.a new income-based repayment plan for federal loans that would cut monthly loan payments in half and shorten the duration of loans under $12,000. Borrowers
Pressley also endorsed ethics reforms for the Supreme Court, as well as adding justices and eliminating lifetime appointments.
"The Supreme Court right now is far right, extreme and imbalanced," Pressley said. "There are a lot of ethical things in question. We need a binding code of ethics to restore the integrity of the courts. Right now they are legislating from the bench. They're operating like some super legislature that's not been accountable to the people because of these lifetime appointments. Everything needs to be on the table."
As for Mr. Biden's reelection campaign, Pressley said the president has made a "compelling legislative case."
"The Biden-Harris administration makes a compelling case, but we have more work to do," Pressley said. "We still need paid leave. We need to make the child tax credit permanent. We still need universal childcare. There is still work to be done."
Echoing the president, Pressley said the alternative in 2024 would be worse.
"I know what my chances are in a Biden-Harris administration," Pressley said. "Under this Republican majority in the House, chaos is not the symptom. It is the strategy. They are anti-woman they're anti-worker, they're anti-immigrant. My Republican colleagues make the affirmative case for Democrats every single day with a cruel, callous and ineffective way they have been governing."
Pressley was much more guarded in characterizing other potential challenges to Mr. Biden from outside the GOP.
On Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s primary challenge against Mr. Biden, Pressley, once a Hill aide to Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, took a long pause before speaking.
"Let me say this. This is a democracy. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there ... It's up to every candidate to put forward their vision."
When asked if the RFK Jr. candidacy could be a chaos play by Republicans to complicate Mr. Biden's political life, Pressley replied, "I won't get into conspiracy theories and I won't speculate in that way. I'm no pundit. Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee and I'm focused on making the affirmative case for Democrats."
On the subject of academic Cornell West's third-party run, Pressley said, "I respect, Dr. West. We've shared many, many stages. Every candidate will have their opportunity to make the case to the electorate."
Pressley was similarly vague about the No Labels effort to draft a candidate to challenge Mr. Biden and former President Trump if they become the major party nominees. Some Democrats fear a No Labels candidate, should one emerge and gain traction, might siphon votes from the president in swing states.
"What I want is for people to feel seen," Pressley said. "I make it a point to door knock, to do the work of mobilization, not just in an election cycle. That's what the Democrats have to do as well. We can't just engage people from a dynamic of transaction."
Executive producer: Arden Farhi
Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor Watson
for more features. | US Federal Policies |
If you watch TV, especially conservative TV, you know Mike Lindell. He’s the guy who comes on every 10 minutes or so to sell his pillows for “the best night’s sleep in the whole wide world.” He’s also the guy who has sunk tens of millions of dollars into supporting investigations and lawsuits that claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
And I just took him for $5 million.
You may have read a little about it. In the summer of 2021, Lindell announced that he was going to hold a “Cyber Symposium” in Sioux Falls, S.D., to release data that proved that U.S. voting machines were hacked by China. He said he would even pay $5 million to anyone who could disprove his data.
Right away, friends started calling to ask me if I was planning to go. After all, I invented the field of software forensics, the science of analyzing software source code for intellectual property infringement or theft. Still, I wasn’t sure. There are a lot of experts that could analyze data. And no one in their right mind would offer $5 million if the data wasn’t real and verified, right? Anyway, the symposium ran three days — not nearly long enough to analyze and verify any data.
But I’m also a tournament poker player. I love a good challenge. And as the calls and emails kept coming in, I started to think, I should go, just to be there when history was made. I voted for Trump twice. If Lindell’s data was correct, maybe a presidential election would be overturned. I’d at least get to meet some really interesting people. So I flew to Sioux Falls.
At the symposium, I saw the competition, about 40 or 50 of them. Some were highly qualified hackers and experienced cyber experts like me. Others were just interested parties with some experience in information technology.
We gathered in two small rooms that looked like stark public-school classrooms. After introducing ourselves, we began downloading Lindell’s Holy Grail — his “proof of election fraud” that came from an unspecified source — which consisted of seven files comprising over 23 gigabytes of data.
Two of the files were generic information about voting machines. Another file was a meaningless one minute, 20 second silent video of a computer screen showing some unknown program being debugged. A fourth file was a 23 gigabyte binary file containing ones and zeroes, allegedly containing packet capture data, or “PCAPs.”
If you’re not familiar with any of that language, packets are the small chunks of information that are sent over a network like the Internet and then reassembled at the receiving end as pictures of your grandkids or cute cat movies from YouTube. PCAPs are records of those packets as they flew around a network.
In numerous interviews, Lindell had claimed that his data showed packet captures of votes flowing outside the U.S. to China where they were modified to switch votes from Trump to Biden, and then sent back to U.S. voting machines.
We used a variety of forensic tools designed to understand and analyze PCAPs, but found this mysterious file didn’t contain any of the 37 standard PCAP formats. I even used the CodeSuite forensics tool I had developed to try to gain any information from the file. Nada.
So I decided to focus on the three remaining files, which were simple text files that could be opened up with any text editor like Notepad that comes preinstalled on every Windows computer. The contents were text representations of hex numbers, which are base 16 numbers used by computers as opposed to base 10 numbers, decimal, used by people.
I started with the ominously named file Chinese_SourceIP_HEX.txt. Having programmed computers for about 50 years, I recognized that each of these hex numbers seemed to represent a code for alphanumeric characters known as ASCII code. So I took a software tool I’d written years ago and ran this text file through it to turn the text representation of numbers into actual numbers.
Next, I opened the resulting file in the Notepad text editor. Sure enough, I saw letters and numbers representing some other kind of code — Rich Text Format code, a very old and simple way of coding word processor documents. (It turns out that it’s sometimes good to be old, wise, and experienced like me.)
I opened this converted file with Microsoft Word and… voila... a table with hundreds of rows of numbers appeared — numbers that looked like IP addresses (that is, the numbers associated with devices connected to a network).
|58.250.125.174||7|
|49.7.20.81||7|
|58.53.128.88||7|
|39.103.227.160||7|
|49.7.21.119||7|
With no other information, they were about as meaningful as a list of random words. At that point, it was obvious that the data in these text files were not anything related to the 2020 election. That’s when I knew I had stumbled onto the key. Not the key to showing election fraud, but the key to showing Lindell’s nonsense.
I repeated the same process on the other text files and found even stranger stuff. These files were also obfuscated word processor documents, but contained thousands of lines of gibberish — nothing more than random characters and numbers.
My eureka moment had arrived. While everyone else was looking at the sky, I had found the golden ticket on the ground; while they were trying to find packet data in the files, the truth was that it wasn’t packet data at all. I said something out loud like, “I’m going to take this back to my hotel room and work on it there,” to no one in particular. I quietly and deliberately packed up my laptop and strolled out of the room and out of the venue. On the way back to the hotel, I called my wife. “Start thinking about what you want to do with 5 million dollars,” I told her.
Back in my room, I wrote up my report and registered a copy online with the U.S. Copyright Office as proof that I had written it by the contest deadline. Just in case.
But Lindell’s game wasn’t over yet. The next day, a little before noon, I strolled into the cyber workroom and found everyone still going at it. It turns out there was more data to analyze — Lindell had given us about 50 gigabytes of additional data to plow through. There were four new files, but when I looked at them, they were essentially the same types as the first day’s files except with a spreadsheet containing 121,128 lines of generic information about internet service providers around the world plus their locations, their latitudes and longitudes, their IP addresses, and other miscellaneous information. I determined that nothing in the file was related to the 2020 presidential election, and wondered what my competitors were seeing.
Then came another giant batch of 509 files, comprising many more gigabytes. This was how Lindell planned to keep anyone from winning the challenge, I figured. Just inundate us with files and not nearly enough time to analyze them. That $5 million suddenly seemed to have slipped through my fingers in a way that felt very unfair.
But I had come too far to give up. On the third and final day of the symposium, an idea hit me. I decided to scan the file modification dates for all of the latest files we’d been given and, lo and behold, most of the dates were August 2021, right before the symposium.
In other words, the data were obviously modified right before we examined them. They could not possibly accurately represent data from the November 2020 election.
My flight was leaving early that evening, so I needed to be quick. I ran back to the hotel, added this new information to my report, double checked it, triple checked it, and saved it onto a flash drive. I hurriedly packed my things, rushed to the symposium as it was ending, handed my report on a flash drive to an official-looking person, and ran out to the Uber or Lyft waiting for me by the door. I made it to the airport just in time for my flight home to Vegas.
I guess the rest is history, as they say. I never talked to Lindell after the symposium; he never responded to my findings. So I hired great lawyers at Bailey Glasser and filed an arbitration lawsuit against him. It dragged on for a year and a half, during which his law firm quit and he hired a new one. During the leadup to the hearing with the three-person arbitration panel, his witnesses gave conflicting answers to critical questions like “What exactly was in the data you provided to the experts and how was it related to the November 2020 U.S. presidential election?”
In January 2023, the hearing was finally held. We presented our case. Lindell presented his case, though he only was there for about one hour — to testify — out of the four-day hearing. In April 2023, the decision was handed down, awarding me $5 million.
“Mr. Zeidman,” the arbitrators stated, “proved the data Lindell LLC provided … unequivocally did not reflect November 2020 election data.”
Last week, Lindell filed an appeal of the decision, though to win that appeal he needs to show that the arbitrators were corrupt. He also claimed that I was part of “a big cover-up to a much bigger picture” and should never have been allowed to enter the contest. My lawyers and I will continue to fight him in court. When and if I see the money, I plan to donate to a nonprofit to legitimately support voter integrity laws and processes.
Lately, people have been saying to me that I “saved democracy in America.” I’m really flattered, though I think that’s an exaggeration. But if more people sought truth, even when that truth is contrary to their beliefs — such as when a Republican like me destroys a Republican myth — then I think we really can save democracy in America. In fact, I think that’s the only way. | US Federal Elections |
Florida Democrats plan to cancel presidential primary, enraging Dean Phillips’ campaign
The representative says the state party has deliberately moved to keep him off the ballot. Florida Dems say he is acting “unbecoming.”
Florida appears poised to hold no presidential primary election for Democrats this cycle after the state party submitted only President Joe Biden’s name as a candidate up for the nomination.
The move to leave Rep. Dean Phillips off the primary ballot left the Minnesota Democrat enraged on Thursday. In a statement first provided to POLITICO, Phillips, who has launched a longshot primary bid against Biden, accused Florida Democratic Party officials of rigging the primary. He threatened a lawsuit and a convention fight if he didn’t win ballot access in the state.
“Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee,” said Phillips. “The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them.”
The Phillips campaign’s complaint is rooted in the process by which candidates can get on the ballot in Florida. Under state law, it is left up to the parties to decide who makes the primary ballot. The deadline for parties to submit a list of approved candidates to state election officials is Thursday.
But Florida Democrats acted before then, sending a notice on Nov. 1 to the state that had Biden as the only primary candidate. Phillips had entered the race a few days earlier, and self-help guru Marianne Williamson had been campaigning for months by then. Under state law, if a party only signs off on one candidate for the primary ballot, the contest is not held.
Florida’s primary is held March 19, which puts it in line behind Super Tuesday and several other large states such as California and Texas. It is expected to allocate 250 delegates.
In his statement, Phillips called the handling of the process by the Florida Democrats a “blatant act of electoral corruption” and demanded Biden “condemn and immediately address” it.
The Biden campaign did not provide a comment for this story.
Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, contended the party followed its “standard process” that was outlined on its website.
“We are dismayed by Dean Phillps’ conspiratorial and inappropriate comments comparing the state of Florida to the Iranian regime as part of his knee-jerk reaction to long-established procedures,” Fried said. “This is unbecoming of someone running for higher office.”
The delegate selection plan cited by Florida Democrats does not spell out an exact deadline for candidates to ask to be placed on the primary ballot.
An initial version of that plan from early April said the party would prepare and approve a list of “recognized” candidates. A revised version, submitted to the state on Nov. 1, was changed to say the list would be approved at the state party convention. That convention began Oct. 27, the day Phillips launched his campaign, and ended Oct. 29, which is when the state party approved Biden as the only candidate.
Phillips’ campaign said the representative first sent two letters to the Florida Democrats on Nov. 7 in which he provided staff contact information and stated that he was writing “to emphasize my personal commitment to encouraging full participation by our supporters in Florida’s delegate selection process.”
Eden Giagnorio, a spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party, provided a different timeline. She said that Phillips’ campaign first reached out to the state party on Nov. 22 requesting a conversation. Two days ago, she said the campaign spoke with the party’s executive director and “we learned for the first time that they were asking about this, which is not enough time because we have to give our state executive committee 10 days’ notice to convene them to vote.”
However, Giagnorio acknowledged, “There’s no requirement for presidential candidates to do anything to get on the ballot.” She said there are no plans to add additional names to the list of approved candidates by today’s deadline.
In addition to considering a lawsuit against the Florida Democratic Party, Phillips’ campaign said that it is planning to take its fight to the Democratic National Committee.
The representative’s aides argue that Florida Democrats are in violation of the national party’s rules that require delegates to the Democratic National Convention “be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus participants.”
A DNC spokesperson said the committee offered to provide guidance to the Phillips campaign on state party processes weeks ago, but that the campaign did not take up the offer, and continues to be available to him and other Democratic candidates.
Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Phillips, said, “That’s very kind. I’m sure they would not have conceived of a situation where Florida would violate the party’s rules.”
If the DNC is unpersuaded to make a change, Phillips’ team said that it will escalate its fight up to the convention, where it will “contest the credentials of each and every delegate” from Florida, including superdelegates.
Phillips’ approach of attacking the primary process is reminiscent of the tactic adopted by insurgent presidential candidates in the past, most notably Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
In 2016, Sanders’ team claimed the primary process was rigged against him. Many Democrats felt those accusations soured some young and liberal voters on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, in the general election. Sanders’ aides and allies have long argued that he did everything he could to campaign for Clinton after the primary ended.
Earlier this month, Phillips apologized to Sanders on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing: “I had long dismissed his complaints about the rigged Democratic Party primary system. But you know what? He was right.”
Weaver, who managed Sanders’ 2016 campaign, laid into the Florida Democratic Party in a statement.
“The Florida party is engaging in the politburo politics of places like Cuba or the old Soviet Union. Communist Party insiders make the decision instead of the people,” said Weaver. “After all that has been done to erode confidence in the democratic process since 2020, does our party really want the legitimacy of our nominee to be put in question by this corrupt, rigged process?”
The process for getting on a state-run presidential primary ballot varies. In some states, it’s like running for any elected office, with requirements for voter signatures and a filing fee paid to the government. Other states just pull the names of active candidates and place them on the ballot. And still others outsource the process to the respective state parties.
The situation in Florida stands in contrast to one of its neighbors that uses a similar system. The Georgia Democratic Party’s executive committee voted last week to place three names on that state’s March 12 primary ballot: Biden, Phillips and Williamson. A press release at the time noted that the state party “followed an open process, publicized the plan on the party’s website, and considered all candidates who submitted their written request to be included.”
Steve Shepard contributed to this report. | US Federal Elections |
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley addressed President Biden's age in a recent 60 Minutes interview.
The president's age, along with that of former President Donald Trump, have become points of concern for many ahead of the 2024 election. Mr. Biden is now 80 and Trump, the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is 77. Political opponents and even some allies have portrayed them as too old to be president.
"I didn't comment on the former president's mental health, physical health and I'm not going to comment on the current president's mental health or physical health. I think that's highly inappropriate for the senior officer of the United States military to do that," Milley said.
Milley wasof the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Trump and served in the role under Biden until he left office at the end of September.
Milley, in his role as the nation's highest ranking military officer, regularly met with Mr. Biden. He said the president was "fine" each time.
"How people interpret that is up to them, but I engage with him frequently and alert, sound, does his homework, reads the papers, reads all the read-ahead material. And he's very, very engaging in issues of very serious matters of war and peace and life and death," Milley said. "So if the American people are worried about an individual who is, you know, someone who's making decisions of war and peace and has access to, you know, makes the decisions of nuclear weapons and that sort of thing, I think they can rest easy."
Around 80% of Americans believe elected officials older than 75 risk being out of touch with the times, and 78% have concerns about their ability to perform their job, apublished in September found. Just more than half of Americans polled, 53%, believe the presidency is too demanding for someone over the age of 75.
President Ronald Reagan was 77 at the end of his second term when he left office. He was the oldest sitting president until Biden.
Presidential contender and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has
"The presidency is not a job for someone that's 80 years old," the 45-year-old DeSantis told "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell in September. "And there's nothing, you know, wrong with being 80. Obviously I'm the governor of Florida. I know a lot of people who are elderly. They're great people. But you're talking about a job where you need to give it 100%. We need an energetic president."
President Biden's physician Kevin O'Connor said in February that the president remainedafter a routine physical.
Milley is set to appear on 60 Minutes on Oct. 8, 2023.
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Hours after Rep. Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, was sworn in as the new House speaker, a letter arrived at Johnson's new office suite in room H-232 of the Capitol. A few dozen House Democrats informed him in that letter that in the three weeks in which the House operated without a speaker, "2,030 people have died from gun violence including 15 children and 60 teenagers."
"Another 2,072 people were injured by gun violence and our country was traumatized by 33 more mass shootings," they added.
In the wake of recent mass shootings, including the, gun control supporters in Congress are trying to nudge forward legislation and proposals that have stalled under a Republican-led House this year.
Letters seeking supporters and co-sponsors circulated on Capitol Hill through the weekend, despite emphatic opposition to new gun measures by Republicans on key House committees and Johnson, who told Fox News on Thursday, "The problem is the human heart. It's not guns, not the weapons."
The House Democrats' letter, obtained by CBS News, said, "Although we can never get back the time that was wasted by the chaos caused by the lack of leadership in the House of Representatives, we must not let that dysfunction prevent us from working together to address the gun violence crisis moving forward."
The nascent efforts received a potential jolt Thursday from Rep. Jared Golden, the Maine Democrat who represents Lewiston. At a news conference last week, Golden announced he was changing his position on assault weapons.
"I have opposed efforts to ban deadly weapons of war, like the assault rifle used to carry out this crime," Golden said Thursday. "The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston."
Before the Maine shooting, gun control supporters in the House had already launched four separate "discharge petitions" to force a House vote on gun restriction measures. Discharge petitions are invoked by the minority party in the House when majority leadership declines to bring a bill to the floor for a vote. If the petition is signed by a majority of a House members, a floor debate is launched.
Though Republicans have yet to support the four discharge petitions, Democrats continue to amass signatures within their own party. Sponsors landed a 203rd Democratic signature, Rep. Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, this month for a petition to force a vote on legislation to require safer storage of firearms.
In a separate letter being shared among House members, Rep. Glenn Ivey, Democrat of Maryland, sought co-sponsors for a bill to raise the age for gun ownership.
The letter said, "This bill would increase the age to purchase a semiautomatic centerfire rifle from 18 to 21 years old."
"Semi-automatic rifles can discharge up to 45 rounds per minute. There is no justification for an 18-year-old to have access to a weapon of this caliber," the letter goes on to note. "Young adults are inherently unpredictable at this age, according to multiple studies."
House Democrats acknowledge the political opposition to new gun measures, but say the advocacy and championing of gun control proposals increase the prospects of new laws if Democrats regain control of the House in 2025.
Rep. Mike Thompson, Democrat of California, who chairs the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, told CBS News, "Change happens when the people of this country want it to happen. We need to keep making sure that people understand that there are things we can do."
Rep. Lucy McBath, Democrat of Georgia, whose son died in a shooting at age 17 in 2012, has also been sharing a letter seeking supporters for a federal "red flag" law, which would temporarily prevent gun purchases by people deemed by judges to be a threat or danger. McBath said her legislation, which passed the Democratic-led House in 2022, "will establish nationwide access to extreme risk protection orders through federal courts, improve the implementation of existing state extreme risk laws and encourage more states to adopt these laws by providing grant funding to states with laws that meet certain standards."
John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, told CBS News, "It's sad to say but these tragic events are sometimes fuel behind legislative action." Feinblatt said among the multiple gun control measures under consideration, the group is primarily focused on an assault weapons ban.
"I think we can certainly plus-up the numbers" of supporters of federal legislation to address assault weapons, he said.
In 2022, in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in, Congress defied some expectations by passing its first major gun control legislation in three decades. The bipartisan enhances background checks for gun buyers under 21 years of age, provides billions for mental health services and closes the so-called "boyfriend loophole" to prevent convicted domestic abusers from purchasing a firearm for five years.
But some of the Senate Republicans who helped negotiate the bill have not declared any support for the new proposals circulating among Democrats.
Sen. John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, who helped champion the 2022 bill, recently said, "No, we're done," when asked about new assault weapons proposals. A spokesperson for Cornyn told CBS News, "Sen. Cornyn is not a part of any conversations on firearm-related legislation."
A spokesperson for Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who also supported the 2022 law, did not respond to a CBS News request for comment.
Outside advocates said they continue to conduct outreach to both parties. Aimee Thunberg, vice president for communications for Sandy Hook Promise in Newtown, Connecticut, told CBS News, "We continue to have conversations with select [Republicans] and [Democrats] to explore the paths for bipartisan work on gun safety."
But there are Democrats expressing outward pessimism about the outlook for legislation. Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, told CBS News, "You have to look at the reality of the political scene in Washington. As horrendous as this occurrence was in Maine, it's not likely to lead to really significant change."
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President candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis does not apologize for his promise to "slit the throats" of bureaucrats in the federal government if elected.
The Florida governor was asked by MSNBC’s Willie Geist on Thursday if he regretted using such violent imagery.
"We’re going to have all of these deep state people, you know, we are going to start slitting throats on day one," DeSantis said during a Q&A session in August.
DeSantis told Geist that he had no regrets about the language he used "because you’re, you’re being colorful at some of the stuff but you basically need to bring in serious accountability."
He told the host, "Obviously, we’re going to do that within the context of the rule of law in the Constitution. But I want to make very clear to voters that I’m not just going to go up there and be nice about it."
The governor has made rooting out political corruption and cronyism in the federal government a key promise of his presidential campaign.
DeSantis has acknowledged a need for reform on political appointments reaching all the way to the top positions of the executive branch.
"I think the idea that you take a flag [officer] or general officer who recently retired and put them as [secretary of defense], I think it is a mistake," he told Real America's Voice earlier this year.
"You know, they may have to slit some throats. And it’s a lot harder to do that if these are people that you’ve trained with in the past," DeSantis continued. "So we’re going to have somebody out there, you know, be very firm, very strong, but they are going to make sure that we have the best people in the best positions, and there’s not going to be necessarily prior relationships that would cloud that judgment."
DeSantis was once solidly in second place in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, but he has seen his numbers in the surveys erode in recent months as former President Trump expanded his lead over the Florida governor.
The latest presidential power rankings from Fox News shows Trump with a commanding lead but with two candidates in the best position to "reshape" the race with a strong showing in Iowa, DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The latest Real Clear Politics average shows Trump at 48.8% in Iowa followed by DeSantis at 17.3% and Haley at 11.5%.
Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller, Paul Steinhauser, Charlie Gasparino, and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. | US Federal Elections |
Key GOP lawmaker calls for renewal of surveillance tool as he proposes changes to protect privacy
The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is calling for the renewal of a key U.S. government surveillance tool while also proposing a series of changes aimed at safeguarding privacy
WASHINGTON -- The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee called Thursday for the renewal of a key U.S. government surveillance tool as he proposed a series of changes aimed at safeguarding privacy.
The proposals by Rep. Mike Turner are part of a late scramble inside Congress and the White House to guarantee the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows spy agencies to collect emails and other communications. They emerged from a congressional working group and are expected to form the basis of a legislative package that Turner hopes can be passed before Section 702 expires at the end of the year.
“We believe that before the end of the year, we will have a significant package of reforms that will be unprecedented, and at the same time, we will have the renewal of 702,” Turner told reporters.
The section of law at issue permits U.S. officials to collect without a warrant the communications of targeted foreigners who are outside the country and suspected of posing a national security threat. The government also captures the communications of American citizens and others in the U.S. when they’re in contact with those targeted foreigners.
The program has come under scrutiny in the last year following revelations that FBI analysts improperly searched the database of intelligence, including for information about people tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and the racial justice protests of 2020.
The changes described by Turner are meant to heighten the penalties for such abuses, including by allowing Congress to trigger a mandatory inspector general review into alleged violations, and to tighten restrictions on queries, especially ones that are politically sensitive. He also called for allowing only a limited group of FBI supervisors and attorneys to authorize queries of people inside the U.S.
Much of the debate so far has centered on whether U.S. officials should be required to obtain a warrant before accessing intelligence on people inside the U.S.
A bill introduced last week by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and other lawmakers included a warrant requirement. The White House, however, has said such a proposal would cross a “red line,” and FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers at a hearing Wednesday that a mandate for a court order would be legally unnecessary and would snarl vital investigations at a time of rising terrorism threats.
“At a time when the FBI director is claiming that we have the largest threat to national security ... it would be incredibly dangerous and detrimental for us to either allow 702 to expire or to saddle it in a way that it’s unusable," Turner said.
Turner said his proposal would require a warrant only when the database query seeks evidence of a specific crime — but not for searches related to national security.
Additional legislative proposals are expected. Asked Thursday about the status of negotiations with Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Turner said Jordan had indicated that he planned to submit a different proposal. | US Federal Policies |
United States lawmakers are receiving a flood of warnings from across civil society not to bend to the efforts of some members of Congress aimed at derailing a highly sought debate over the future of a powerful but polarizing US surveillance program.House and Senate party leaders are preparing to unveil legislation on Wednesday directing the spending priorities of the US military and its $831 billion budget next year. Rumors, meanwhile, have been circulating on Capitol Hill about plans reportedly hatched by House speaker Mike Johnson to amend the bill in an effort to extend Section 702, a sweeping surveillance program drawing fire from a large contingent of Democratic and Republican lawmakers favoring privacy reforms.WIRED first reported on the rumors on Monday citing senior congressional aides familiar with ongoing negotiations over the bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), separate versions of which were passed by the House and Senate this summer.More than 80 civil rights and grassroots organizations—including Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Color of Change, Muslims for Just Futures, Stop AAPI Hate, and United We Dream—signed a statement this morning opposing “any efforts” to extend the 702 program using the NDAA. The statement, expected to hit the inboxes of all 535 members of Congress this afternoon, says that failure to reform contentious aspects of the program, such as federal agents’ ability to warrantless access Americans' communications, poses an “alarming threat to civil rights,” and that any attempt to use must-pass legislation to extend the program would “sell out the communities that have been most often wrongfully targeted by these agencies and warrantless spying powers generally.”“As you’re aware, this extremely controversial warrantless surveillance authority is set to expire at the end of the year, but will continue to operate as it does currently until April, as government officials have recognized for many years,” the groups say.Johnson and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment. Leadership of the House and Senate armed services committees likewise did not respond.Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes the US government, namely, the US National Security Agency, to surveil the communications of foreign citizens believed to be overseas. Oftentimes, these communications—texts, calls, emails, and other web traffic—“incidentally” involve Americans, whom the government is forbidden from directly targeting. Certain methods of interception, those that tap directly into the internet’s backbone, may make it impossible to fully disentangle foreign communications from domestic ones.Though a probable cause warrant is usually required before US law enforcement can obtain the content of an American’s calls, the courts view Section 702 surveillance—accomplished with the compelled assistance of US telecoms—as a two-step process, applying constitutional safeguards to each step individually. The collection, or seizure, only "targets" foreigners, and is thus legal. Once communications are in the government's possession, however, federal agents are free to query, or search, them under procedures approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, an 11-judge panel whose proceedings are classified and deliberated ex parte. These procedures are ostensibly designed to "minimize" the program’s impact on Americans' rights.The "incidental," or collateral, collection of Americans' communications is intensely controversial, due in part to procedures—namely those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)—that allow federal agents to conduct warrantless, after-the-fact queries of Section 702 data for investigations of a purely domestic nature.The conservative and libertarian nonprofit FreedomWorks, which has supported privacy reforms in an array of surveillance debates at the federal, state, and local levels, said Tuesday that it intends to issue a “key vote” against the NDAA in the event a Section 702 amendment is included in the bill. Key votes are a FreedomWorks scoring tool that track controversial votes by conservative lawmakers; effectively, a bad mark that may be used against them in future elections. The American Civil Liberties Union says likewise that it intends to score the vote using its own similar process, which tags progressives with votes the group deems at odds with the Bill of Rights.“To use the NDAA to reauthorize a mass spying program that has been so flagrantly abused without going through the full legislative process and robust debate betrays the public’s trust,” says Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU. Added FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon: “This is the time for robust debate over these issues, not maneuvers by congressional leadership to undermine Americans’ privacy. FISA reauthorization should not be in the NDAA—period.”A single, uniform bill approved by both chambers is needed before the NDAA can be sent to the president for his signature. A conference of dozens of lawmakers, drawn in large part from the armed services committees, is expected to receive a copy of the bill on Wednesday—their first opportunity to review the consolidated text—and will have until the close of business to approve the language.From there, the NDAA is subjected to different sets of rules for each chamber. In the Senate, it will either be ushered directly to the floor for a vote, or may require three-fifths of the body to formally end debate on the NDAA. In the House, the bill may be subjected to a “rule” issued by the House Rules Committee, which is typically designed to promote the goals of party leaders, waiving points of order or limiting floor debate. The bill may also be considered “under suspension,” however, which is an expedited process that prohibits floor amendments and requires a two-thirds majority.Senior Democratic and Republican sources say the House is expected to bypass the rules committee, meaning there will be no opportunity to strike down any amendments that could extend the 702 program—which is itself not typically included as part of the NDAA.A senior Republican aide tells WIRED the odds of Johnson proceeding with a plan to extend the 702 program using the NDAA have grown slim over the past few days, as it’s become increasingly clear the speaker would face significant backlash from rank-and-file members of his own party, as well as more powerful figures such as Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Matt Gaetz, one a handful of lawmakers to whom Johnson effectively owes his new position.A senior aide to Jordan tells WIRED that the chairman would not support extending the Section 702 program without significant reforms; in particular, a ban against the FBI accessing 702 data on Americans without a warrant.The House and Senate intelligence committees on Tuesday introduced their own legislation to reauthorize the 702 program through 2035, requiring warrants during FBI investigations in criminal cases that fall outside the broadly defined “national security” umbrella. A high-ranking source familiar with the White House’s views on the 702 program told WIRED on Monday that the White House was open to supporting this reform. Civil liberties groups, however, say requiring the FBI to obtain warrants for purely criminal matters does not go far enough, and would not impact a majority of cases in which 702 data is accessed.What’s more, the argument goes, in matters of national security, the FBI should already be well prepared to show probable cause in court. | US Federal Policies |
For Kevin McCarthy and the Republican majority he leads in the House, the debt limit is all about leverage.In exchange for their votes in the November midterms, the party made big promises to their supporters, but the Democrats’ continued control of the Senate and Joe Biden’s presence in the White House means much of the legislation House Republicans pass will go nowhere. Increasing the government’s borrowing limit is one area where the two parties must work together, and while they have been vague on the details, McCarthy’s team says they will only agree to an increase if the Democrats reduce government spending.Using the debt ceiling as leverage has been done repeatedly in the past, but the circumstances today harken back to the standoff of 2011. Then, Barack Obama was in the White House and had a Democratic majority in the Senate, while the GOP had just retaken the House. As is the case today, the Republicans demanded spending cuts, and negotiations dragged on for so long that S&P Global Ratings downgraded American’s debt from its highest grade. The deal that resolved the standoff ultimately did lead to some spending cuts – but the country’s debt has only increased in the years since.Key events2h agoDemocrats and Republicans prepared for battle as US hits debt ceilingShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureAnother day, another Trump scandal. Martin Pengelly has details of the latest:Donald Trump mistook E Jean Carroll, the writer who accuses him of rape, for his ex-wife Marla Maples during a deposition in the case last year, excerpts released in US district court on Wednesday showed.“That’s Marla, yeah,” Trump said, when shown a photograph. “That’s my wife.”The mistake was corrected by a lawyer for the 76-year-old former president. But observers said it could undermine Trump’s claim he could not have attacked Carroll because she is not his “type”.It was not the first release of excerpts from Trump’s deposition, which happened in October. Last week, Trump was shown to have claimed Carroll “said it was very sexy to be raped”.Carroll says Trump raped her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. Trump denies it.Another thing that’s going to be in the news for months is Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and the former president has today announced what he’s billing as a “big political speech” at one of his Florida resorts.“Making a big political speech today at TRUMP DORAL, in Miami. The Fake News says I am not campaigning very hard. I say they are stupid and corrupt, with the Election still a long time away,” he wrote on his Truth social account.Trump does not name the outlets he believes are deserving of “the Fake News” moniker, but several publications, including the Guardian, have noted that his latest presidential bid has been uncharacteristically quiet since its November debut.“But do not fear, MANY GIANT RALLIES and other events coming up soon,” Trump continues on Truth. “It will all be wild and exciting. We will save our Country from DOOM and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” So there you have it.The debt limit is going to be in the news for months, and the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani has the answers to all your questions about what would happen if it isn’t increased, and what the two parties want:The US government will hit its borrowing limit – or the debt ceiling – on 19 January, the beginning of what looks to be a vicious fight over the government’s budget and one that threatens to worsen an already precarious economic outlook.The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, sent an ominous letter of warning to Congress last Friday that “certain extraordinary measures” will have to be put in place to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations” – essentially moving some money around so the government does not default just yet. Those measures will last a few months, but if the limit is ultimately not raised, the federal government will run out of funds.Here is more on the debt ceiling and what it means for the federal government.For Kevin McCarthy and the Republican majority he leads in the House, the debt limit is all about leverage.In exchange for their votes in the November midterms, the party made big promises to their supporters, but the Democrats’ continued control of the Senate and Joe Biden’s presence in the White House means much of the legislation House Republicans pass will go nowhere. Increasing the government’s borrowing limit is one area where the two parties must work together, and while they have been vague on the details, McCarthy’s team says they will only agree to an increase if the Democrats reduce government spending.Using the debt ceiling as leverage has been done repeatedly in the past, but the circumstances today harken back to the standoff of 2011. Then, Barack Obama was in the White House and had a Democratic majority in the Senate, while the GOP had just retaken the House. As is the case today, the Republicans demanded spending cuts, and negotiations dragged on for so long that S&P Global Ratings downgraded American’s debt from its highest grade. The deal that resolved the standoff ultimately did lead to some spending cuts – but the country’s debt has only increased in the years since.Democrats and Republicans prepared for battle as US hits debt ceilingGood morning, US politics blog readers. The US government is expected to today hit the legal limit on how much debt it can accrue to pay its bills, but the immediate consequences will be more political than economic. The treasury says it should have enough cash on hand to settle bills for everything from interest payments to government workers’ salaries till about June, but Congress will need to agree on increasing the limit if the world’s largest economy is to avoid defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history. Joe Biden and the Democrats want to raise the limit without conditions, but Republicans controlling the House of Representatives say they’ll only agree to do so if spending is cut, to some degree. This will be one of the major political battles of the year, and you can consider today its informal start date.Here’s what else is happening: Joe Biden is heading to California’s Santa Cruz county to tour damage done by a series of winter storms, with a speech scheduled for 6pm eastern time. The House and Senate have no business scheduled, but expect to hear from both parties about the debt limit. As the cliche goes, all politics is local, even in Washington DC, where city leaders nationwide are gathering for the annual US Conference of Mayors winter meeting. | US Federal Policies |
Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on southern Maine this week, searching for a military-trained outdoorsman who vanished after police say he killed 18 people in two separate shootings Wednesday.
The deceased ranged in age from 14 to 76. A teen bowler, a shipbuilder and a sign language interpreter were among the dead.
The search for Robert Card, 40, of Bowdoin, involved both old-fashioned footwork and advanced technology, but for almost two days after the shooting there was still no sign of Card by air, water or land.
Then, Friday evening, authorities said Card was found dead. Card is believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Here is a look at the agencies involved and the resources they used in the search for Card:
The most visible search efforts Friday focused on the Androscoggin River near the town of Lisbon Falls, Maine. Card's vehicle was located at a boat ramp nearby.
Maine Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said the search included “air resources” flying over the river and attempting to look through the water from above to identify the best areas to send divers.
Dive teams with the state police and other agencies searched from below, Sauschuck said, with some of the divers being towed behind boats. Other equipment included trawlers, which use nets or other devices to sift through the water, and a robotic submarine equipped with sonar to detect objects using sound waves.
Maine's wildlife game wardens were among the officers taking part in the water search. A regional power company that operates two dams on the river lowered the water level in the area to assist searchers, Sauschuck said.
Others combed the shoreline along the river, he said, meticulously searching for any clues on the river banks or nearby.
On Thursday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat along the Kennebec River but found nothing out of the ordinary after hours of searching, Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith said.
A spokesperson for Maine's Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to questions about the exact types of tools that were used for the land search.
David Carter, a criminal justice professor and the director of the intelligence program at Michigan State University, said law enforcement agencies typically try to narrow a search area by analyzing what is known about a suspect, interviewing family or friends about the suspect’s habits, and scouring reports and law enforcement tips for any suspicious activity in the region like stolen vehicles or missing food or clothing.
During a Friday afternoon press conference, Sauschuck said police received more than 530 tips and leads and were looking at each one.
Some were reported sightings, and others have been “as simple as, ‘I’ve got a vacant house that’s in this location,’ ‘I own a barn that I’m afraid to go into,’ ‘There’s something over here that concerns me,’” he said.
A digital tip line set up by the FBI so that people could submit security camera footage and other media that could reveal clues about the shooting or Card's movements had received more than 100 submissions, Sauschuck said.
Agencies often use artificial intelligence software with facial recognition capability to go through security videos, street light cameras or other video footage, Carter said.
“That AI technology can be used to search the video faster," Carter said. “It’s not definitive, but it helps narrow it down.”
License plate readers can also help track vehicles that might be used by the suspect, he said.
Colder temperatures expected this weekend would have made it easier to use thermal search equipment, Sauschuck said during the afternoon press conference.
“If it's sunnier, you can get a better look into the water," he said. “If it's colder, there's an argument that your thermal style of equipment, where you're looking for body temperatures or heat signatures, may work better in that scenario.”
Infrared cameras and other search-and-track thermal imaging equipment can be especially helpful for searching forested areas by air, Carter said.
“Helicopters and drones, given how wooded it is there, using infrared technology can help you look through the canopy,” Carter said. “It's going to pick up your body temperature. But you're also going to locate deer and squirrels, all sorts of things.”
Neighbors said Card knew the land well, because his family has lived in the area for generations and various family members own hundreds of acres in the region.
Flight tracking websites showed state police helicopters flying over the region in the days after the shooting.
With a multitude of agencies assisting in the search, communication is key, Carter said, and that's where fusion centers come into play.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife paused deer hunting season in the area and the Canada Border Services Agency issued an “armed and dangerous” alert to officers stationed along the U.S. border. State and federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, the Lewiston Police Department and other agencies are carrying out the footwork, paperwork and analysis.
Federal agents searched several properties associated with Card, and investigators were analyzing his financial information and digital fingerprint, including social media posts.
The Maine Information and Analysis Center serves as the state's fusion center, tasked with providing analytical and investigative support for complex crimes. That often means connecting the dots for various agencies involved in large-scale searches, Carter said.
“You can only do so much with technology. You really need an analyst at the fusion centers who can say, ‘these points correlate,’" Carter said. “The analysts can stay on top of it all and keep it all together.”
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Associated Press reporter Michael Balsamo in New York contributed. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
The campaign of scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is not short on problems, including a reported federal investigation.
As Santos reportedly weighs whether to run again in 2024, that spells real trouble—because the campaign hasn’t been legally allowed to raise or spend money for nearly two weeks, according to campaign finance experts who have reviewed recent Federal Election Commission filings.
In a personal Valentine’s Day letter addressed to Santos, the FEC notified him that—as the congressman himself has long known—his old treasurer resigned, and he had a 10-day window to appoint a new one. That resignation was submitted Jan. 31, and, according to the treasurer, was effective as of Jan. 25.
“At the request of the FEC, I am submitting this Form 99 stating that I have resigned as treasurer for the Devolder-Santos For Congress Committee as of January 25, 2023,” wrote the treasurer, Nancy Marks.
News reports this week suggested that the FEC’s letter was a warning, giving Santos 10 days to comply or shut down financial activity.
But the letter itself doesn’t say that, and legal experts told The Daily Beast that the 10-day window appears to have closed on Feb. 4, after Marks’ resignation.
“It has come to the attention of the Commission that your treasurer for DEVOLDER-SANTOS FOR CONGRESS has resigned and the Commission has received no information regarding a new treasurer. A treasurer must be appointed within ten (10) days of the resignation of the previous treasurer,” the FEC notice reads.
“It is required that for any committee to conduct any business, they must have an active treasurer,” the notice continues. “Failure to appoint a treasurer will result in the inability of the committee to accept contributions and make disbursements.”
According to campaign finance experts, the FEC’s notice didn’t start the clock; that countdown actually began from Marks’ resignation, Jan. 25. And because Santos never appointed a new treasurer, the consequences of failing to comply with the law—legally barring the campaign and Santos’ other committees from conducting financial transactions—had actually kicked in nearly two weeks ago.
Brett Kappel, who practices campaign finance law at Harmon Curran, told The Daily Beast that in the eyes of the FEC, the Santos campaign has not been able to legally raise or spend any money since Feb. 4.
“Because they have failed thus far to file an amended Statement of Organization naming ‘Andrew Olson’ as the new treasurer, the FEC considers the position of treasurer to be vacant as of the effective date of the last treasurer’s resignation letter,” Kappel said.
Andrew Olson is the name of the person who supposedly filed the campaign’s year-end report on Jan. 31, after Marks resigned. But the campaign never designated Olson as its treasurer, and The Daily Beast has been unable to contact him—or independently confirm that he exists.
Saurav Ghosh, director of federal reform at government watchdog Campaign Legal Center, echoed Kappel’s analysis.
“His campaign needs a treasurer to raise or spend money, and the 10 days would run from the resignation of the previous treasurer,” Ghosh told The Daily Beast.
“This letter is just a notification so there isn’t really a ‘response’ required,” Ghosh added, saying, like Kappel, that the only such “response” would be to file a statement with the FEC.
But when it comes to what consequences Santos’ campaign might face if it raises or spends money when it’s not legally allowed to, the situation was so bizarre that it left experts stumped.
“I can’t think of any precedent for it,” Ghosh said. “It’s clearly a legal violation, so enforcement action would be appropriate. Not sure what the civil penalty would look like, though… the more they raise or spend without a treasurer, the bigger the fine probably.”
Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director of watchdog group Documented, told The Daily Beast that this should have been a simple fix, “but of course, nothing is simple with Santos.”
“To fix this, Santos’s campaign just has to file a piece of paper with the FEC stating who is serving as treasurer,” Fischer said. “Santos could even designate himself as treasurer, if he wants.”
While Santos has faced an impressive array of scandals and invited ethical questions on a daily basis, his puzzling finances present a clear threat to his continued presence in politics. His campaign finance activity currently is under federal investigation, according to multiple reports.
Hanging over the situation is the question of whether Santos will even attempt to run for reelection in 2024. Earlier this week, CNN reported that the embattled congressman was telling people he might run, but Santos told a local Fox station on Thursday that he didn’t know.
Marks made news in late January amid a chaotic week for the Santos campaign. The Long Island-based political accountant—who has handled the books for the Santos campaign and his stable of related PACs since he first sought federal office in 2020, along with dozens of other campaigns and committees—stepped down hours after submitting a whirlwind of amended campaign finance reports, making a slew of corrections to every single filing from the 2022 election cycle.
The most eye-popping changes involved the source of $705,000 in loans that Santos claims to have made to his campaign using his own money. The amended reports still say the loans came “from the candidate,” but Marks unchecked the box that would verify the money came from the candidate’s “personal funds.”
Santos has told news outlets, including The Daily Beast, that the loans came from money he had paid himself through his private company, the Devolder Organization. But his personal financial disclosures are opaque, raising questions about the true source of his purported wealth, and whether the loans may have been impermissible corporate or straw donations.
Treasurers can be held personally criminally liable for filing knowingly false statements to the government.
After Marks filed those amendments, the campaign passed the baton, filing a statement of organization that appointed another professional treasurer in Marks’ place, Thomas Datwyler.
But Datwyler’s attorney immediately told the FEC this was not accurate, and that he had rejected Santos’ job offer days beforehand, as The Daily Beast first reported. The attorney also asked the FEC to refer the matter to the DOJ to see whether a crime was committed in the filing of the false report, which included Datwyler’s digital signature, The Daily Beast first reported.
The FEC itself then asked the campaign to clarify its treasurer situation, warning them at the time that false claims could invite criminal charges.
Last week, the FEC threw another flag on the legitimacy of Santos’ financial activity. That’s when the commission sent Santos another personal letter, telling him that because his campaign shows no debts, and he hasn’t declared his 2024 candidacy, the committee cannot have legally raised or spent more than $5,000 in connection with the 2024 election, as his year-end report shows.
Santos has until March 14 to either “disavow” his post-midterm fundraising and spending activity, or file a statement clarifying his candidate status for 2024, the FEC said in the notice.
With the multiple investigations swirling around Santos, the astounding array of errors and inconsistencies in his reports, and a reported DOJ probe into his campaign finances, Kappel doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
“I expect that the campaign committee will soon get another letter regarding the multiple deficiencies in the Year-End Report and that the other Santos political committees will get letters rejecting their efforts to terminate and instructing them to keep filing reports,” he said. | US Political Corruption |
Arizona's former attorney general suppressed findings by his investigators who concluded there was no basis for allegations that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, according to documents released Wednesday by his successor.
Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, who took office last month, said the records show the 2020 election "was conducted fairly and accurately by election officials."
Previous Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, never released a March 2022 summary of investigative findings, which ruled out most of the fraud claims spread by allies and supporters of former President Donald Trump. Yet a month later, he released an "interim report" that claimed his investigation "revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona."
He released his April report despite pushback from his investigators who said some of its claims were refuted by their probe. Brnovich was at the time in the midst of a Republican Party primary for U.S. Senate and facing fierce criticism from Trump, who claimed he wasn't doing enough to prosecute election fraud.
Brnovich, whose primary bid was unsuccessful, also did not release a September memo that systematically refuted a bevy of election conspiracies that have taken root on the right, including allegations of dead or duplicate voters, pre-marked ballots flown in from Asia, election servers connected to the internet and even manipulation by satellites controlled by the Italian military.
"In each instance and in each matter, the aforementioned parties did not provide any evidence to support their allegations," the September memo read. "The information that was provided was speculative in many instances and when investigated by our agents and support staff, was found to be inaccurate."
The September memo, which was among the documents released Wednesday, describes an all-encompassing probe that became the top priority for the attorney general's investigators, who spent more than 10,000 hours looking into 638 complaints. They opened 430 investigations and referred 22 cases for prosecution. President Joe Biden won Arizona by a little over 10,000 votes.
Mayes said the fraud claims were a waste.
"The ten thousand plus hours spent diligently investigating every conspiracy theory under the sun distracted this office from its core mission of protecting the people of Arizona from real crime and fraud," Mayes said in a statement.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Brnovich for comment were unsuccessful.
"We did our due diligence to run all complaints to ground," Brnovich said, according to KPHO. "Where we were able to debunk rumors and conspiracies, we did so." He added his office identified problem areas that the state Legislature and Maricopa County officials should address."
Brnovich's "interim report" claimed that election officials worked too quickly in verifying voter signatures and pointed to a drop in the number of ballots with rejected signatures between 2016 and 2018 and again in 2020. He also claimed that Maricopa County was slow in responding to requests for information.
He made those claims even after investigators who reviewed a draft pushed back, publishing his report largely unchanged following their feedback.
The investigative staff concluded that the county recorder's office "followed its policy/procedures as they relate to signature verification; we did not uncover any criminality or fraud having been committed in this area during the 2020 general election," investigators wrote. They also said they found the county "was cooperative and responsive to our requests."
Arizona became the epicenter of efforts by Trump allies to cast doubt on Biden's victory. Republican leaders of the state Senate subpoenaed election records and equipment and hired a Florida firm led by a Trump supporter,, to conduct an unprecedented review of the election in Maricopa County.
The Cyber Ninjas review gave Biden more votes than the official count but claimed that their work raised serious questions about the conduct of the election in Maricopa County, home to metro Phoenix and the majority of Arizona's voters. The investigation by the attorney general's office found the allegations did not stand up to scrutiny.
"Our comprehensive review of CNI's audit showed they did not provide any evidence to support their allegations of widespread fraud or ballot manipulation," Brnovich's investigators wrote.
Thursday's release is the latest confirmation that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election and that Biden won the presidency legitimately. Trump continues to repeat his lie that the election was stolen from him as he mounts his third bid for the White House,in the battleground states he contested and his own administration officials debunking his claims.
Officials in Maricopa County, where nearly all the officials overseeing elections are Republicans, say they endured death threats and verbal abuse due to the suggestions of malfeasance in the Cyber Ninjas review and Brnovich's "interim report."
"This was a gross misuse of his elected office and an appalling waste of taxpayer dollars, as well as a waste of the time and effort of professional investigators," Clint Hickman, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors said in a statement.
Brnovich's investigators did conclude that Maricopa County officials did not uniformly follow state election procedures when filling out forms to document the pickup and transport of mail ballots. But they said the errors were procedural and that "investigators did not find anything that would (have) compromised the integrity of the ballots or the final ballot count."
Investigators interviewed two Republican state lawmakers who publicly claimed they knew of fraud in the election, but wrote that neither Rep. Mark Finchem nor Sen. Sonny Borrelli repeated their claims to investigators — when they could have been subject to criminal charges for false reporting to law enforcement. The investigators said a third lawmaker, Republican state Sen. Wendy Rogers, declined to speak with them.
for more features. | US Political Corruption |
Sen John Fetterman has a simple analogy when talking about his use of the captioning technology that helps him understand what people are saying to him.
Seated in his trademark black hoodie behind his desk in the Russell Senate office building, a stand in the shape of his home state of Pennsylvania props up a tablet showing captions for the words others say to him.
The past year and a half has been a whirlwind for the freshman Democratic senator. The centre of the political universe was already set to focus on Pennsylvania throughout much of 2022, given that it was one of the few seats Democrats had a chance of flipping.
Mr Fetterman easily did away with his Democratic primary opponents. But days before he won the nomination in May of last year, he suffered a stroke. That in turn led him to have difficulties with auditory processing. At times, he will still mispronounce words or blend some together. His post-stroke struggles meant that he would be scrutinised as a marquee candidate even more.
During Mr Fetterman’s only debate with Republican television star and physician Mehmet Oz, he used closed captioning, though at times struggled with speaking. In response, Democrats panicked that he would lose what was once seen as a winnable race. Afterward, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was caught on a hot mic telling President Joe Biden on a tarmac that it looked “like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania.”
The fears that Mr Fetterman would lose did not pan out. But in the weeks after he was sworn in, he continued to face challenges, being hospitalised at George Washington University Hospital. Then, shortly thereafter, he checked into Walter Reed Medical Center to undergo treatment for depression for six weeks.
When he first came to the Senate during orientation, he often did not respond to reporters as he still dealt with auditory processing issues. But over time, he’s resumed talking to reporters in the way that endeared him to many when he was mayor of Braddock, the western Pennsylvania steel town, and when, as lieutenant governor of the state, he frequently pushed back against former president Donald Trump and Republicans’ lies about the election.
When approached by reporters or his colleagues, he frequently whips out the phone he keeps in the breast pocket of his Carhartt shirt and many do not mind speaking directly into the device, and he will offer a quippy response in return. He has an equally simple response when asked about his use of captioning technology.
“Millions of Americans, maybe tens of millions of Americans, you know, rely on their glasses, whether it's a drug or especially to read,” he told The Independent in an interview on Wednesday. Mr Fetterman said that most people would never think to judge people who needed glasses.
“Is that a reflection on the kind of person you are or anything like that?” he said before pointing to his tablet. “It's no different than a pair of glasses that allows me to participate as we are doing right now.”
Mr Fetterman stressed that the captioning technology, just like his glasses, enables him to effectively do his job. And in recent weeks, he’s put himself at the centre of the political universe.
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer caused a stir when he attempted to change the Senate dress codes so Mr Fetterman could enter the floor to vote and preside in the Senate in his signature casual clothes. That triggered outrage and led to Sens Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) to pass a resolution. Mr Fetterman, whose campaign regularly mocked his Republican opponents online during his Senate campaign, responded with an internet meme of King of Queens actor Kevin James shrugging.
When Sen Bob Menendez (D-NJ) was indicted for corruption charges, Mr Fetterman became the first senator to call for his resignation, breaking the typical decorum and triggering a deluge of calls for Mr Menendez to step down.
“Because it’s an easy call,” he told The Independent. “I mean, it’s just, you know, if you can’t stand up and do the right thing, when, you know, half a million dollars of cash is stuffed in albums all around the house in gold bars under a mattress, you can’t even believe that that was even possible.”
These days, when he roams the Capitol, he’s often flanked by his aides. When Republicans opened their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, Mr Fetterman notably laughed off the effort when speaking to an NBC reporter.
Last week, as Republicans on the House Oversight Committee began their impeachment hearing, he dropped off a case of Bud Light at their office, an obvious dig at how conservatives despise the beer brand after it featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
When auto workers began to strike last month, he drove to Detroit to express solidarity and chided former president Donald Trump for trying to act like he was a friend of the working man by holding a rally in the Motor City.
“I drove there in the vehicle that they made,” he said of the auto workers, as his large 6’ 8” frame towered over his desk even when he leans back in his chair. “You know, he drives around in some busted out, you know, plane.”
Mr Fetterman said he doubted that Mr Trump understood the work that the union labourers put in.
“It's just so plastic, but of course, you know, who's behind it,” he said.
The freshman Democratic senator is also fully aware of the fact he is perhaps the most prominent American with an auditory processing disorder who uses captions after he recovered from his stroke in May. An estimated 0.5 to 1 per cent of the US population has an auditory processing disorder. One study said that 40 per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 60 had auditory processing deficits after a stroke.
In the weeks after he suffered his stroke, Mr Fetterman learned how to use captioning technology.
“Otherwise, you know, right after my stroke, the way to communicate effectively, was having a whiteboard and a marker, things like that,” he said.
But in the weeks and months that he learned how to use closed captioning, many people treated the tool that would allow him to answer his questions and continue to campaign as an oddity. After his first interview since his stroke, NBC News reporter Dasha Burns said “it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation,” even though that is precisely what captions are meant to do.
Jenna Beacom, a deaf sensitivity reader based in Columbus, Ohio, said the coverage was stigmatising.
“The means of conveying information is pretty much irrelevant,” she told The Independent via direct messages on X, formerly known as Twitter. “What is important is that each person has the same access to information.”
But in a way, his stroke and use of technology meant he would represent a new group of people: the one in four Americans with disabilities, including many Pennsylvanians. His staff met recently with Josie Badger, a disability rights advocate with a rare neuro-muscular condition, as she was discussing how people with disabilities risk losing their Supplemental Security Income benefits if they get married.
Ms Badger told The Independent that growing up in rural Pennsylvania, she didn’t know people with disabilities.
“I thought the only way to be successful was to separate myself from my disability,” she said. “Something like his presence in a leadership position, I hope can help others see, you don't have to pretend to be someone else to be a leader to make a difference.”
State Rep Jessica Benham, who in 2020 became the first openly autistic person elected to Pennsylvania’s state legislature, also said it was important to show that Mr Fetterman was just like any other legislator.
“And I always say that my experiences as a working class kid are just as important as my experiences as a queer woman or a person with a disability,” she said. Ms Benham said that she has spoken to Mr Fetterman occasionally about his disability and said she saw him recently at a Labor Day event.
“I think what's really cool for me to see is, you know, obviously, he has acquired this disability, more and more recently, and so to watch his understanding of how that connects to the broader issues that folks with disabilities are facing, it's really cool,” she told The Independent.
Mr Fetterman saw it as his duty to destigmatise the type of technology that he used.
“It’s a duty, it’s an obligation, but it's also a privilege to be able to do that too,” he said.
At the same time, Mr Fetterman said he recognised he has it easier than many people with disabilities.
“Most of the most of the people that are in the community now have had it much, much, much harder than I have,” he said. “Because, you know, a straight white guy and I never had any kind of disabilities that stopped me or prevented me from fully participating in society, for lack [of] a word.”
During a recent hearing on the Senate Aging Committee about government technology being accessible to people with disabilities, he spoke about the ridicule he faced, which partially led to him being hospitalised for depression.
The mockery did not relent as he underwent treatment. During the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, one stand sold shirts mocking him and President Joe Biden, saying “Biden-Fetterman 2024: It’s a no-brainer.” Mr Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr called him a “vegetable.”
Mr Fetterman said the way his condition was discussed was “cruelty.”
Mr Fetterman also criticised the ableism he sees in media coverage, including a recent cover of The New Yorker that featured Mr Biden, Mr Trump, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell using walkers.
“It's just like, holy s***. Don't we have to respect, you know, older people,” he said. “If an episode with the Leader McConnell for anyone to exploit that, or to use that to weaponse, that is some this is something ... I would refuse to ever do.”
Day to day, he has said that the United States Senate has been incredibly accommodating toward him. And indeed, many senators are disabled themselves. Sen Jon Tester lost three of his fingers in a meat grinder accident as a child. Sen Chuck Grassley, the oldest-serving senator, had hip surgery earlier this year and had to use a wheelchair. Mr McConnell, 81, uses hearing aids, as does Mr Tester and Sen John Cornyn of Texas.
In addition, the Senate changed its accommodations to allow for him to use his captioning on the floor. Mr Fetterman’s colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr Casey, also a Democrat, is the chairman of the Senate Aging Committee and has long supported disability rights.
Mr Casey told The Independent the fact that Mr Fetterman can communicate with captioning technology “is really a great breakthrough because the key here is the institution's got to adapt to that individual.”
In the same way, Mr Fetterman said he followed the lead of other disabled lawmakers such as former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head during a constituent meeting in 2011 and together with her husband Sen Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has become an outspoken advocate for gun control. Similarly, he has found inspiration from Sen Tammy Duckworth, who uses a wheelchair after she lost her legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq during her military service.
“She's a national hero, and she has dealt with so so so so, so much more than I have,” he said. “Now. So she's the go-to person in this Senate and in America.”
Indeed, in July, during the week of the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Ms Duckworth spoke in person at an event hosted by the American Association of People with Disabilities and described how she could not see the Barbie movie with her daughters because the elevator in the theatre was broken and was only informed of this once she had purchased a ticket. Ms Duckworth said that she has a list of ways to make the Capitol more accessible.
“More elevators, more ramps, more bathrooms,” she told The Independent. She also called Mr Fetterman’s accommodations “the kind of reasonable accommodation we should be making for people.”
Mr Fetterman delivered remarks via video at the same event hosted by AAPD commemorating the ADA.
“I want to thank your community for the work that you have done to make sure people with disabilities can run for and win office,” he said. “Now that I’m a senator, I’m going to continue to fight for disability rights in DC.”
The event also featured former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The event had closed captions for the audience. | US Congress |
Miller-Meeks Statement on Speaker Vote and Death Threats
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, I voted to support Jim Jordan’s candidacy for Speaker of the House. I voted for Jim Jordan for the greater good of the House Republican party, based on our Conference meeting and the test Speaker ballot that was cast earlier this week.
However, after one round of votes, with my support, he was not able to secure enough votes for the Speaker nomination and my initial concerns about threatening tactics of Jim Jordan’s supporters, including from members of Congress, increased despite assurances.
Today, it became abundantly clear early in the roll call vote, that Jim Jordan still did not have the votes necessary to become Speaker. Given the concerns I had before any vote and the ability of the speaker designee to unify the conference, I voted in support of Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger to serve as Speaker of the House. I voted for Chairwoman Granger because she has demonstrated great leadership this year by bringing forth, and passing, fiscally responsible, single-subject appropriations bills and is a staunch conservative.
However, since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully.
One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully.
Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech. That’s why I spoke out forcefully against censorship and suppression during the COVID-19 pandemic. I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now.
I understand that voting against Rep Jordan is not popular at this time. I respected Jim enough to vote for him, knowing he did not have the votes to be elected. We have had numerous calls to all our offices, and many have urged that I support Jim Jordan and many others urged me to look for a conservative consensus candidate.
Our party needs a consensus candidate so we can get back to the work forwarding appropriations, supporting Israel, and stopping the insane policies of the Biden Administration. Policies that are causing sky high prices and interest rates, an invasion of our southern border, undermining our national security, and bringing countless pounds of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into our country.
### | US Congress |
Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.A victory by Walker will put Republicans one seat away from retaking control of the chamber, and perhaps mark the unofficial start of the campaign to do so in 2024. In that election, Democrats will be defending Senate seats in a number of states that typically vote Republican, such as Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. They would only need to lose one for the GOP to return to the majority.Key events1h agoJury to begin deliberations in Trump Organization fraud trial2h agoDemocrat Warnock holds narrow lead in final stretch of campaigning for Georgia Senate seatShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureDemocratic candidates managed to sweep the main races in Arizona last month, but only after officials across the state overcame a host of attempts to disrupt the vote. The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang has a closer look at just how messy the midterms were in the southwest state:The lead-up to Arizona’s midterms saw tactics designed to disrupt the American democratic process in a battleground state where election denialism ran rampant. Though voters broadly rejected election deniers, the grip of their ideas remains strong among large portions of the right in the state, which is now at the forefront of the fight over democracy in the US.“Voters in swing states sent a message that they were not receptive to election denialism. They didn’t send that message everywhere,” said Daniel I Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program.Weiner added: “There is going to continue to have to be built a greater consensus amongst Americans across the ideological spectrum that this is out of bounds. This election was reassuring. It certainly doesn’t mean the election denialism has gone away, though.”Here’s more from the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino on what Democrats hope to accomplish if Raphael Warnock wins a six-year term representing Georgia in the Senate:Last month Democrats secured control of the US Senate, keeping their fragile hold on power with 50 seats and vice president Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. Yet winning the Georgia runoff election on Tuesday would deliver Democrats more than just a single Senate seat: it would finally give them an outright majority.The contest between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his scandal-plagued and Trump-backed Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, will determine whether the Democrats retain their 50-50 majority in the Senate, the narrowest possible balance of power, or whether they will expand it.In the weeks since the November midterm elections, when Warnock and Walker failed to clear the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff, Democrats and Republicans have spent tens of millions of dollars and dispatched their top surrogates to Georgia in an all-out effort to win the seat. Early voter turnout has been especially high and polls show a close contest.Gaining one more seat in the Senate would have far-reaching implications for Democrats, both politically and procedurally. As Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer wrote in an email to supporters: “Having 50 seats is great, but having 51 is even better.”Republican hopes of a victory by Herschel Walker in Georgia are fading, Politico reports.Not only is Walker behind in the few polls conducted in the state since last month’s midterms, but he’s been dogged by gaffes and allegations that he paid for women to have abortions even though he supports banning the procedure nationwide.“I think a lot of Republicans are hoping we’ll be pleasantly surprised, but there aren’t a lot of indications out there to base that on,” former chair of Georgia’s Cobb County GOP Jason Shepherd told Politico. “Just a lot of hope and faith in things unseen. It’s the Christmas season, after all.”The Republican candidate didn’t present himself well in an interview with the publication. They report that, “In a brief interview with POLITICO on Saturday, Walker seemed to mistake which chamber of Congress he was running for and also appeared to think the outcome of his race would determine control of the Senate.”Even the weather could work against Walker. The GOP is hoping that their voters will turnout massively on election day to cast ballots, but it’s supposed to rain across the state tomorrow.With less than 24 hours until polls open in Georgia, here’s a reminder from CNN on how much Democrats want to see Raphael Warnock re-elected to the Senate.The party has spent massively on his run-off election in the weeks since last month’s midterm election, and outspent the Republican campaign for Herschel Walker:On the eve of the Georgia runoff, some eye-popping numbers: Democrats have more than doubled GOP ad spending since Nov. 9 -- $55.1 to $25.8 million. From campaigns and outside groups, it all ads up to about $80.9 million since Election Day, my colleague @DavidWright_7 reports.— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) December 5, 2022
Jury to begin deliberations in Trump Organization fraud trialJurors in Manhattan will today start deliberating over whether to convict the Trump Organization in its tax fraud trial, Politico reports.Former president Donald Trump’s business is facing $1.6 m in fines if jurors determine that it avoided taxes through a scheme to pay its executives with under-the-table perks. Trump is not facing charges in the case, but a conviction could further tarnish his reputation as he once again seeks the White House in 2024.Closing arguments wrapped up last week, and a verdict could come as soon as today. Defense attorneys have argued Trump knew nothing about the scheme, and said Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer who has already pleaded guilty to tax charges, is to blame for the fraud.Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.A victory by Walker will put Republicans one seat away from retaking control of the chamber, and perhaps mark the unofficial start of the campaign to do so in 2024. In that election, Democrats will be defending Senate seats in a number of states that typically vote Republican, such as Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. They would only need to lose one for the GOP to return to the majority.Democrat Warnock holds narrow lead in final stretch of campaigning for Georgia Senate seatGood morning, US politics blog readers. Democratic senator Raphael Warnock appears to have a narrow lead in the runoff election for Georgia’s Senate seat against GOP challenger Herschel Walker, polls indicate. If he wins, Democrats will be able to pad their majority in Congress’s upper chamber, and have an easier time defending their control when legislative elections are held in 2024. But if Walker wins, Democrats’ hopes that Georgia has become a purple state may end up being put on ice. We’re one day away from finding out which side has the momentum.Here’s a rundown of what’s going on today: The supreme court at 10am eastern time will hear arguments in a case over whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law violates the free speech rights of a web designer because she only wants to create wedding pages for heterosexual couples. Joe Biden, fresh off welcoming French president Emmanuel Macron to Washington, hosts the congressional ball at 6.30pm. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 2.30pm. | US Federal Elections |
A top White House official said the goal was to provide $600 million to investigate and prosecute systemic pandemic fraud, a similar amount to bolster fraud prevention and $400 million to help victims of identity theft.
"The president wanted to make sure that we had a special and concerted effort to prosecute and punish the worst offenders of pandemic fraud," Gene Sperling, who is overseeing implementation of the White House’s American Rescue Plan, said on a call with reporters previewing the proposal.
While at least $2 billion has been recovered so far, according to Government Accountability Office data, some experts have estimated that Covid relief fraud could be more than a quarter of a trillion dollars. The Trump and Biden administrations distributed about $5 trillion in Covid relief funds.
Sperling said he will be on Capitol Hill talking with key lawmakers Thursday about the proposal, adding that it will part of the president's budget, which is expected to be sent to Congress next week amid heightened tensions with Republicans over the debt limit.
Sperling, however, struck an optimistic tone about winning over Republicans to secure bipartisan support for the proposal.
“I think that they will see this as actual savings,” Sperling told reporters. “This is about increasing our [inspector generals'] and law enforcement’s ability to save taxpayer money.”
He also said he believes the proposal will end up paying for itself with the recovered funds.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has said his panel will launch investigations into hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars lost to fraud when Covid relief funds were distributed.
In response to the White House proposal, Comer said, “It’s about time the Biden Administration addressed waste, fraud, and abuse in pandemic spending. It took Republicans taking the majority and holding hearings prioritizing this issue for the Biden Administration to finally come up with a proposal."
Comer, whose office would not say whether he had decided to support the administration's proposal, said his panel will hold a hearing next week "on fraud and improper payments in COVID-relief programs administered by the Department of Labor, Treasury, and Small Business Administration.”
The White House also called for increasing the statute of limitations to 10 years for cases of serious, systemic pandemic fraud.
In an outline of its proposal, the White House said: “Absent additional resources, the oversight community would be unable to investigate and prosecute the known caseload before the statute of limitations expires and to pursue sophisticated cases that will require more time and resources.”
Sperling said: “It takes time to go after the most sophisticated folks. We want to not only capture them, get their funds. We want to send the signal to them that you can run but you cannot hide.”
According to the proposal, watchdogs for the Small Business Administration and the Labor Department would each get at least $100 million for long-term hiring of investigators to pursue organized pandemic fraud cases and to support efforts led by the Justice Department's chief pandemic fraud prosecutor.
Haywood Talcove, chief executive officer for government at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which contracts with states and the federal government on pandemic fraud prevention, said he is “very excited” about the White House’s proposal.
“Focusing on data-sharing between agencies and states while enhancing front-end identity protection will improve the experience of those using government services while reducing the amount of time law enforcement spends investigating these crimes,” Talcove said in a statement to NBC News.
Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, which also works with states and the federal government on pandemic fraud prevention and identity verification, called the White House’s proposal a “major step forward” in addressing a “national security issue.”
“We are glad to see major investments into fraud and investigations activity so criminals will be held accountable,” Hall said in a statement to NBC News. "Given the involvement of nation-state sponsored actors attacking benefits programs, pandemic fraud is a national security issue. We believe the answer to that pandemic era fraud is apparent.”
Since the pandemic began, 1,044 people have pleaded guilty or been convicted of defrauding federal Covid relief programs, according to the Government Accountability Office. An additional 609 have been charged. | US Federal Policies |
As the saga of the House Speaker's race continues, it's obvious that this Republican House majority is more dysfunctional than at any time in history. This week was supposed to yield a new crop of candidates, among them at least one or two who could bring about a consensus among the moderates (sic) who hail from Biden districts, the institutionalists who allegedly care about maintaining the U.S. system of government and the nihilists who just want to blow everything up. It's not going well.
There have been a number of shifting demands from these various factions but we now know that the one inviolate criterion is that any new speaker must be an election denier. On Tuesday, their leader Donald Trump made it very clear that he will not allow anyone who has ever crossed him in that way to have the gavel. So when Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who voted to certify the election on January 6, was nominated for the job, Trump trashed him on Truth Social for failing to understand "the Power of the Trump Endorsement." He then reportedly got on the phone with members to make his wishes known. Within the hour Trump reportedly told a confidante of Emmer, “he’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”
It's tempting to see this as a simple Trump ego power play. Emmer didn't kowtow to the Big Lie so he wanted revenge and he got it. I'm sure that's a big part of his motivation for interfering that way. After all, what difference can it really make to him who is the Speaker of the House in this Congress? Well, if you think about it, it might make a very big difference. If he decides to once again contest the election results if he doesn't win, having a puppet in the job could be very helpful to his plans to attempt another coup. Does anyone think he wouldn't try it?
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Obviously, he wouldn't have the same levers of power that he had as president in 2020 to do things like attempt to enlist the Justice Department (DOJ) in his scheme. But that was actually a small part of the plot and it failed anyway. Most of what they did was an outside game, with the Team Crazy lawyers taking the lead along with attempts to coerce state and local election officials to rig the election after the fact. But it also required the cooperation and participation of "the Republican congressmen" who Trump referred to as his accomplices when pressuring DOJ officials. Many of them were aware of the "fake elector" plot and were more than prepared to step up if Vice President Mike Pence had done his part to usurp the Constitution.
It's very fitting that a supercilious centrist group like No Labels would deliver the death blow to American democracy.
It may sound crazy that Trump would even attempt such a thing again considering all the legal jeopardy he's facing in both federal and state court for what he did last time. But that's exactly why he is most likely to try it again. It's the one sure thing he can count on as a get-out-of-jail-free card. (And yes, if he's found guilty in the Georgia case and he finds his way back to the White House anyway, I'm sure he believes there's no reasonable enforcement method. Are they going to send the Fulton County sheriff to the White House to bring him to jail? Would the Secret Service let them do it?)
Luckily for Trump, there's an outside group that's determined to help him do it this time and they've got a serious plan.
The centrist think tank Third Way has been warning the public about their erstwhile allies No Labels for a while now. (It's a sign of the times that such a split would happen between two groups allegedly representing the "center.") Now they're sounding a deafening alarm.
We've known for a while that No Labels has been planning to run an independent candidate which they have assured everyone they would only do if it would not play spoiler and elect Donald Trump. Such assurances have always been empty since their pollster Mark Penn (who is married to Nancy Jacobson, the leader of the organization) has been MAGA-friendly for years. Third Way's new memo explains their change of plans:
Since they launched their third-party presidential effort last year, the No Labels Party has repeated a central refrain: “our bipartisan ticket, led either by a Democrat or a Republican, will not be a spoiler — we are in this to win.” But that has now changed. No Labels has made clear that their new plan is to put a Republican at the top of their ticket. And because they can’t win the presidency outright, they’ve indicated that their intention now is to exercise leverage over the winner by denying both major parties 270 Electoral College Votes (ECVs). That radical new plan would ensure a second Trump term.
No Labels' spin is that by putting a Republican on the top of the ticket they will be denying Trump a victory — but that's not true. In fact, the whole thing is much more likely to deliver him back to the White House. Their own polling shows that this No Labels ticket could result in denying either party the required 270 electoral votes they need. And we know what that means:
None of this is speculation. No Labels put out a chart based on their new polling that shows their candidate (from either party) can’t win …
Their chief strategist has said publicly they are preparing for a contingent election in which they try to win a few states and deny Trump and Biden 270 electoral votes. This, No Labels believes, would give them leverage to cut a deal by promising their electors’ support to whichever major party candidate they deem more worthy.
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It's very special that No Labels believes it can or should "cut a deal" to install the next president without winning a majority of electoral votes. Apparently, Donald Trump has convinced these supposedly principled centrists that corrupting the election even more than he did is perfectly respectable.
But that's not what would happen in this situation anyway. They would have to somehow coerce electors into voting their way which isn't likely so the actual outcome would be that no party reaches the 270-vote threshold and it goes to the House of Representatives where the party that has the most delegations decides. Guess which party has more delegations? The Republicans, all of whom would be ecstatic to have the chance to steal the election for Donald Trump.
If you think this House speaker election is a three-ring circus, this would be a nuclear meltdown. But I have to say it's very fitting that a supercilious centrist group like No Labels would deliver the death blow to American democracy. I'm sure they'll find a way to blame the Democratic hippies for it anyway.
Read more
about the GOP circus in the House
- Tom Emmer drops speaker bid within hours: The MAGA cult is in a death spiral
- "A gigantic pool of nos": Dozens of Republicans reject Tom Emmer, GOP's third nominee for speaker
- "He is the right person for the job": Kevin McCarthy endorses Tom Emmer for speaker
- Jordan out as speaker candidate in secret ballot after top ally warned death threats "will continue" | US Congress |
Jamilla Vanbuckley would like to buy a home one day.
A correctional counselor in New York City, Vanbuckley has been living with her parents and tucking as much money as possible into her savings account. But by late summer, she expects a new expense to enter her monthly budget – gradually paying off the $68,000 she owes in student debt.
"I'm gonna have to dip into my savings to start paying back on August 29," she said, mentioning the day that payments for direct federal student loans are set to resume. "And now that kind of hinders the goals I had set for myself for the next couple of years."
Vanbuckley is among the 37 million borrowers who have not been required to pay their student loans since March 2020 due to legislative and executive action during the pandemic.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona confirmed in May that the Biden administration intends to restart student loan payments by 60 days after June 30, a plan later cemented in the government's deal to suspend the debt ceiling.
However, advocates worry that the resumption of payments and the legal challenges to President Joe Biden's plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt can result in catastrophic consequences for vulnerable borrowers.
The uncertainty comes amid a change in debt servicing companies for millions of borrowers and staffing shortages that experts see as unprecedented in consumer finance, resulting in logistical headaches, hourslong wait times, and potential communication errors in billing.
"Anyone who has been paying attention to the student loan system sees a train wreck coming, and there's very little time to try to avoid it at this point," said Abby Shafroth, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center and the director of its Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project.
Why is this change happening?
The original pause to student loan payments originated from the early days of the pandemic, according to University of Wisconsin Madison professor Nick Hillman.
Fearing that the sudden spike in unemployment might lead many borrowers to default, the government put millions of federal direct student loans into administrative forbearance and dropped their interest rate to zero percent.
With the end of the federal COVID emergency, the government lost its ability to continue the student loan pause, originally authorized through the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003, according to Hillman.
The deal made by congressional Republicans and Biden to suspend the debt ceiling confirmed that student debt payments would resume this summer. With the change, experts worry that the historically low rate of delinquency for student loans will return to the previous high of 10 percent or worse.
"We are anticipating what has been described as a wave of student loan defaults and delinquencies," said Cody Hounanian, executive director of nonprofit Student Debt Crisis Center.
What factors complicate the change?
Without having to pay for student loans over the last three years, many Americans have created strict budgets that do not include a monthly student loan payment, according to Shafroth. With a new monthly student loan bill averaging $160, something in these budgets has to give.
"Leisurely spending is probably gone," Robert Bistoury, a 2020 graduate of Baruch College who said he has $27,000 in student debt, told ABC News.
Both Hounanian and Shafroth worry that borrowers will be cutting into their budgets for rent, medical expenses and food.
"For the majority of people, this is just a new bill that they have to pay, the size of which they may not even realize quite yet," said University of California Irvine professor Dalié Jiménez.
Complicating the resumption of payments is the logistical hurdle of suddenly resuming payments for millions of Americans, which a Department of Education spokesperson described to ABC News as "unprecedented" and "herculean."
Multiple companies that service student loans have left the industry, according to Shafroth, meaning that millions of borrowers will also be dealing with an unfamiliar company that might not have up-to-date contact information for borrowers.
For example, Vanbuckley's student loan servicer switched from Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation, which no longer services student loans, to NelNet – a transition she described as relatively smooth. Others like Hounanian described a more chaotic switch, including receiving false information from his servicer that needed to be corrected.
Shafroth added that many loan servicers have reduced their staff during the pandemic and will need to hire and train new employees to handle the demand for assistance, further complicated by a smaller-than-desired budget for the Department of Education this year.
Those constraints "may lead to some longer processing times and call hold times than would be ideal for this situation," Scott Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance, said in a statement to ABC News.
The Department of Education spokesperson told ABC News that it recognizes the return to repayment will result in "significant financial hardship" for borrowers but is committed to helping borrowers.
Perhaps the most significant unknown for borrowers is the fate of the Biden administration's plan to eliminate up to $20,000 in student debt, which is facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, Biden vetoed a bill that would reverse the debt relief program, and the bill faces low chances of a successful override vote in Congress.
"It does give me some anxiety…it is what it is, and I have to budget accordingly," Vanbuckley said about the stalled plan.
Who is most vulnerable?
Experts worry that the shift back to student loan payments places financial hardship on vulnerable Americans and presents an opportunity for bad actors. For borrowers who are still determining how they might pay their monthly student loan bill, some may turn to companies that promise student loan relief but are nothing more than scams that prey on vulnerable consumers, according to Hounanian.
"We know that a lot of companies prey on the confusion and anxiety and stress that people are feeling about their student loans," Shafroth said.
Before the change, experts recommend that borrowers confirm the contact information for their loan servicers and their repayment plan. The Department of Education offers a new income-driven program for borrowers and has discharged loans for borrowers who qualify through public service, disability, or college wrongdoing.
Hillman particularly encouraged borrowers under $20,000 in debt to confirm their servicer and repayment plan, especially given the uncertainty with loan forgiveness.
According to Hillman, while six-figure loans often drive media attention, borrowers with "smaller" loans who never completed their degrees face the highest rate of default. | US Federal Policies |
HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. -- Law enforcement authorities in New York have scheduled a news conference Friday to announce a new development in their investigation of multiple sets of human remains found along the Long Island coast, some of which have been blamed on the work of a serial killer.
Rex Heuermann was arrested last month in the deaths of three women and has been named a prime suspect in the killing of a fourth. The remains of those four women were discovered in 2010 along a coastal parkway near Gilgo Beach.
Police, though, have continued to investigate the deaths of six other people whose skeletal remains were found along the same, long stretch of coastline.
Among them was a woman, long nicknamed “Jane Doe No. 7” by investigators, whose partial remains were first discovered in 1996 on Fire Island. More of her bones were later found near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
Police have been trying to figure out her identity for 26 years.
Other unidentified remains belong to a woman nicknamed “Peaches” by investigators after a tattoo on her body. Some of her remains were discovered stuffed inside a plastic tub in Hempstead Lake State Park in 1997, others turned up near Gilgo Beach in 2011, along with the remains of an unidentified toddler believed to be her daughter.
Authorities have said Heuermann, who lived in Massapequa Park across the bay from where some of the bodies were found, is unlikely to be responsible for all the deaths.
Investigators zeroed in on Heuermann as a suspect in the slayings of four women — Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello and Maureen Brainard-Barnes when a new task force formed last year ran an old tip about a Chevy Avalanche pickup truck through a vehicle records database.
A hit came back identifying one of those make and models belonging to Heuermann, who lived in a neighborhood police had been focusing on because of cellphone location data and call records, authorities said.
Detectives said they were later able to link Heuermann’s DNA to a hair found on a restraint used in one of the killings.
So far, he has been charged in the deaths of Barthelemy, Waterman and Costello. Prosecutors say they are working to charge him with Brainard-Barnes' death, but have not yet done so.
Through his lawyer, Heuermann has denied killing anyone and pleaded not guilty.
Investigators spent nearly two weeks combing through Heuermann’s home, including digging up the yard, dismantling a porch and a greenhouse and removing many contents of the house for testing.
Earlier this week, prosecutors said they have begun providing Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown, with reams of evidence including autopsy findings, DNA reports and crime scene photos. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. CNN — In 1970, a protester in London, angered by the cancellation of a cricket tour, threw an egg at UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the leader of the Labour Party. His Conservative Party rival, Edward Heath responded, “This was a secret meeting on a secret tour which nobody is supposed to know about. It means that there are men, and perhaps women, in this country walking around with eggs in their pockets, just on the off-chance of seeing the Prime Minister.” The current UK Prime Minister Liz Truss didn’t get egged last week, but she was not treated gently. Truss faced the indignity of having her tenure compared to the shelf life of a head of lettuce after her economic policies tanked the British pound. On Thursday, she announced her resignation after just 45 days in office. “What a six weeks it was,” Rosa Prince noted, “marked by the death of a monarch and installation of a new king, a fiscal plan that crashed the markets and caused a run on the pound, the abandonment of her entire policy program, sacking of a chancellor and home secretary, loss of confidence of virtually all her MPs, reports of violent bullying in Parliament and opinion polls suggesting an existential wipe-out for her party at the next election…” “Rather than build bridges by seeking to unite the party and bring rival factions into her government, she created further resentments, triggering immediate plotting. Installing allies into key Cabinet posts left her open to the charge that her team was both inexperienced and maverick,” Prince observed. The ministerial position once held by fabled figures like William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, David Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher had already been whittled down in public esteem by the shambolic leadership of Boris Johnson. But Truss’ poll ratings were the worst ever recorded, even lower than Johnson’s. And now Johnson is said to be a potential candidate to replace Truss. “The UK is turning itself into a third-rank power following its disastrous decision in 2016 to vote for Brexit and pull out of the free trade zone of the European Union,” wrote Peter Bergen. Clay Jones Brexit “has proven to be an economic debacle. Many jobs in the UK that would have been filled by Europeans who were formerly free to move to Britain for work are going unfilled in sectors such as construction, farming, nursing homes, and restaurants. Since the Brexit vote six years ago, the UK’s per capita income has grown by only 3.8% in real terms, while the EU’s has grown by 8.5%, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.” Bergen argued that America’s serious troubles pale by comparison to those of the UK, Iran and Venezuela and that “Russia and China – the two nations with which the United States strives most regularly for global influence – have suffered recent dramatic declines in their standing. “By invading Ukraine and failing to achieve its war aims, Russia is demonstrating that it is no longer a great power.” The Liz Truss story also has implications for US politics. “Failing to prepare public opinion for her proposals meant there was no widespread support for them in any segment of British society,” wrote Henry Olsen in the Washington Post. “Republicans are at risk of making the same mistake if they retake control of Congress. The GOP’s midterm messaging focuses on inflation, crime and immigration, but the party is not telling the public much about what it would do to combat those ills. That might be good politics, but it also means they would have no mandate for significant departures from the status quo. Using the national debt limit next year as leverage to force significant spending cuts, including to Social Security and Medicare, as has recently been rumored, would be as politically disastrous for the GOP as Truss’s supply-side tax cuts were for the Tories.” Walt Handelsman Dana Summers/Tribune Content Agency With a little more than two weeks till Election Day in the US, it’s anyone’s guess how party control of Congress will wind up. After Democrats enjoyed a summertime surge in the polls following the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the passage of President Joe Biden’s climate and health measures, the outlook now is widely seen as favoring the Republicans. But the margins in many key races are close. “High levels of concern about inflation and diminished attention on the electoral impact of the Dobbs decision appear to have hurt the Democrats,” wrote Julian Zelizer. “Though Americans are concerned about the future of our democracy, the issue is not registering at the top of the list – and many voters think the main problem is corruption, rather than threats from the GOP to overturn future results.” “The implications of a strong showing by the GOP would be enormous. Not only could Republican success potentially shift control of the House and Senate, leaving President Joe Biden to deal with two years of trying to raise debt limits and avoid draconian budget cuts, but the midterms could entrench Trumpism and solidify the direction of the party.” In Georgia, the state that gave Democrats control of the Senate in 2020, people are turning out for early voting at record levels for a midterm election. On the ballot is a contest between Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, former football star Herschel Walker. “Why are so many Republicans still supporting Herschel Walker?” asked Jill Filipovic. “This is today’s Republican party of ‘family values’: A man who wants to outlaw abortion, but whose ex says he paid for hers (and tried to get her to have a second). CNN has not independently verified the allegations from the woman, who has remained anonymous.” “Prominent Republicans have made clear by campaigning for Walker that the allegations simply don’t matter to them. This is odd: In the words of the anti-abortion movement, abortion is murder. Most Americans, of course, don’t agree, but the stated policy of the Republican Party is that abortion is equivalent to killing a child. And here is a US Senate candidate, accused of facilitating just that. And Republicans have largely shrugged – or suggested that, despite not admitting wrongdoing, Walker should be given grace and redeemed,” Filipovic pointed out. “Crime is an important issue,” Paul Begala wrote. “There, I said it. The problem is, not enough Democratic candidates are saying it. Some don’t seem to know what to do about this issue…” “In my many years in politics, I have never seen a more destructive slogan than ‘defund the police.’ … The overwhelming majority of Americans – including most Black Americans and most Democrats – oppose defunding police. Still, the political damage from that slogan has been real.” “Some Democrats don’t want to talk about crime. They hope most voters’ righteous outrage about the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade will overshadow crime as an issue. I think they’re wrong. A lot of smart Democrats are embracing their strong records on crime, refusing to cede the issue to the party whose leader, Donald Trump, described the January 6 insurrection, in which scores of police officers were injured and five later died as a ‘lovefest between the Capitol Police and the people that walked down to the Capitol.’” Phil Hands/Tribune Content Agency For more: SE Cupp: MAGA Republicans, please stop calling yourself conservatives Van Jones and Janos Marton: Florida told them they could vote. DeSantis had them arrested for it Dean Obeidallah: Democracy is Kari Lake’s real opponent in the Arizona governor’s race Nick Anderson/Tribune Content Agency As a 19-year-old college student in London, Ana Diamond traveled to Iran to visit relatives, only to be arrested, she wrote, “on trumped-up charges of espionage for MI6 and alleged ‘infiltration’ of the Iranian political system.” She was sent to the notorious Evin prison. “While in detention, I endured months of solitary confinement, long hours of interrogations and a mock execution,” recalled Diamond, who was eventually acquitted. Last week’s fire at the prison and the story of Elnaz Rekabi, the Iranian rock climber who competed without wearing a hijab, brought back memories of Diamond’s time in the country. “While the Iranian authorities are quick to blame recent protests on foreign powers fomenting chaos and disorder inside the country, those of us who have lived in Iran know that this women-led uprising was a long time coming,” Diamond observed. “Women – including, I suspect, Rekabi – are no longer afraid of the prospect of imprisonment. This often happens in totalitarian states when life outside prison still feels like imprisonment, and there is very little left to lose.” Chris Council/Getty Images Katherine Keel lives in the Rocky Mountain town of Basalt, Colorado. A former Division 1 swimmer now training to be a paramedic, she moved five years ago to a rural community very much affected by climate change. “Major roads close regularly due to flooding and mudslides, cutting off our town from the resources of the city. Most summers, smoke inhalation is an inevitable part of recreating outdoors, and it’s become commonplace to check the air quality index daily to see if it’s safe.” Writing for CNN Opinion’s series, “America’s Future Starts Now,” she noted, “I’ve taken up fly fishing as a hobby, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife advises anglers to refrain from fishing when the water temperature in our rivers hits 67 degrees – as it places high stress on the fish. Tourism is down when snow totals are low in the winter, which affects a major source of income for my rural community.” “And then there are the wildfires.” Keel is far from alone. A third of American adults have been personally affected by an extreme weather event in the past two years, according to Gallup. “After decades of stalling,” wrote Jonathan Foley and Jamie Alexander of Project Drawdown, “the federal government is finally taking decisive action on climate change. The recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate-related legislation has set the stage for significant progress toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions and building America’s renewable energy future.” “It’s a great start, but federal policy alone won’t get the job done. Bringing climate solutions into the world at scale requires that every part of the economy bring its superpower to bear: genuine business leadership moving markets, investors and philanthropists shifting capital, workers building solar panels and wind turbines, and cities and states making climate solutions a reality in the places we live and work.” Sierra Club President Ramón Cruz wrote that “State governments have a crucial role in the equitable implementation of the IRA, as residents of their states increasingly experience the traumas of losing their homes, loved ones and livelihoods through climate-fueled disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes and droughts. “The impacts of the climate crisis are not confined to either blue or red states, but are felt in communities across the nation. This includes low-income communities and communities of color in Michigan, for example, that are among the most polluted in the country and have higher than average rates of asthma. It includes communities of coal miners suffering from black lung disease and struggling with access to medical care. These communities and many more remain in desperate need of support — which the IRA can provide.” Chimére L. Smith, a middle-school teacher, saw the flaws in America’s health system firsthand while experiencing a severe case of long Covid. “My symptoms started with a sore throat and diarrhea, but soon snowballed into a living hell: constipation, burning lungs, dehydration, stomach aches, delirium, memory loss, joint and muscle pain, sleeplessness, weight loss and loss of vision in my left eye. And they wouldn’t stop,” she wrote. It took a long time for doctors to put Smith on the path to recovery, and that only came after she reached out to public officials, journalists and more doctors, she said. “Now, nearly three years after my Covid-19 infection, I am doing a bit better,” Smith wrote. “I can cook, drive to appointments, read and have hour-long phone conversations with family and friends. My will to live has been restored.” But she is not able to return to teaching. “Though this virus affected Black and brown people at a higher rate, I rarely saw Black long Covid patient stories at the forefront of conversations about this disease. I only had to look back on my own experience to understand why: To be heard I had to get mad enough to challenge medical authority, ask questions, complain and agitate. I had to disrupt a system designed to exclude me and people who look like me.” What can be done to improve health care? Start with nurses, wrote Theresa Brown. “When too few nurses work on a hospital floor, patients die who would likely otherwise have survived. That is not hyperbole, but a fact well established by research.” “Despite this, many hospitals have been understaffing their wards for years. Then, Covid-19 came, confronting overworked nurses with extremely ill patients who were dangerously contagious. Many patients died, and many nurses quit. Of those who remain on the job, many are considering leaving.” “The crisis in nurse staffing arose largely because many health care entities prioritize profits over healing … Eliminating nursing positions gives hospitals an easy way to cut their labor costs.” Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP/Getty Images Elon Musk is the richest person in the world and the force behind Tesla and SpaceX, two companies revolutionizing their industries. But he occupies our mind space largely for another reason: more than 109 million people follow his idiosyncratic account on Twitter, the social network he may finally be in the process of purchasing. “If Elon Musk’s actions didn’t have such powerful consequences,” wrote Frida Ghitis, “we could sit back and enjoy the show. But, since he likes weighing in heavily on consequential matters, the rest of the world has to worry about the impact and wonder whose side he’s on. What are the principles – moral, ethical, financial – that drive his rambunctious forays into world affairs?” Musk made headlines recently with his ill-received outline of a negotiated settlement of the Ukraine war. He asked his “followers to vote on a plan that looked like it was drafted in the Kremlin, complete with distorted history of Crimea – the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014,” Ghitis wrote. “If a Putin-pleasing proposal was not enough, Musk had a little something for China’s President Xi Jinping. In an interview with the Financial Times, he unveiled his proposal for resolving hostilities between Beijing and Taipei.” “It’s worth noting that Tesla has a huge presence in China. If Beijing is happy with Musk, it can be good for business.” “Perhaps it’s not fair to paint the Tesla tycoon as a friend of dictators. Life is not Twitter, and in the real world the Starlink internet service made by Musk’s SpaceX has been an invaluable tool for Ukrainians fighting Putin’s invasion.” For more: Kara Alaimo: The chilling problem with how Kanye West and Elon Musk define ‘free speech’ Dana Summers/Tribune Content Agency Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg: Women can’t wait any longer for gender equality Naka Nathaniel: Why I’m rethinking Boy Scouts for my son Kent Sepkowitz: Paxlovid coverage wrongly suggests the experts blew it again on Covid-19 Ben Mattlin: I have a disability that is obvious — and one that’s not AND… BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images Saturday was “Half-Earth Day,” six months after the April 22 celebration of the Earth’s importance – and fragility. But it’s worth noting for more than an accident of the calendar, wrote Lydia Strohl. “Half-Earth is the notion that for humans to survive, we must retain earth’s waning biodiversity by reserving half the planet for nature, stabilizing large swaths of ocean, prairie, rainforest and desert to house the birds, insects and ecosystems that affect the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe,” Strohl observed. “The Half-Earth Project was inspired by legendary Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson, who died in 2021 at the age of 92. In ‘Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life,’ Wilson wrote: ‘We would be wise to find our way as quickly as possible out of the fever swamp of dogmatic religious belief and inept philosophical thought through which we still wander. Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.’” Wilson’s words rang especially true after the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report noted a week ago that its study of certain vertebrate species had found an average decline of 69% since 1970. Strohl quoted Elizabeth Grey, the CEO of Audubon, who is in her 50s. “We need to listen to what the birds are telling us. We’ve lost three billion birds in my lifetime. Birds are sentinels for healthy land and water – if birds are in trouble, people are too,” Grey said. “The canary is singing,” Strohl concluded. “Listen, before its voice is stilled.” | US Federal Elections |
Donald Trump is a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.
Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.
The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them.
Trump’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past.
This idea was recently pitched to Trump by a longtime Republican activist and an attorney who’s known the ex-president for years, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter. (Republican officials have also begun voicing their own support for state-level offices of election integrity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the proposal a reality in his state. Officials in Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin have proposed the offices, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, proposed a similarly named office.)
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And when it comes to Special Counsel Smith’s office — which just handed Trump his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the former president and his fellow travelers already know what they want: They want the FBI and DOJ to name names.
This year, close advisers to Trump have begun the process of assembling lists of the names of federal personnel who have investigated the former president and his circle for years, and are attempting to unmask the identities of all the DOJ attorneys and others connected to Smith’s office. The obvious purpose of this, according to one source close to Trump, is to “show them the door on Day 1 [if Trump’s reelected]” — and so “we know who should receive a subpoena” in the future.
Such subpoenas would of course be instrumental in Trumpland’s vows to its voters that, should he return to power, Trump and his new attorney general will launch a raft of their own retaliatory “special counsel” and “special prosecutor” probes to investigate-the-investigator, and to go after their key enemies. As it were, Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official and a central figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the legitimate 2020 presidential election results, has been on Trump’s informal shortlist for plum assignments, including even attorney general, in a potential second administration.
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Sources familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Trump and his close ideological allies — working at an assortment of MAGA-prone think tanks, advocacy organizations, and legal groups — are formulating plans for a wide slate of “special prosecutors.” In this vision, such prosecutors would go after the usual targets: Smith, Smith’s team, President Joe Biden, Biden’s family, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray. But they’d also go after smaller targets, from members of the Biden 2020 campaign to more obscure government offices.
“There are almost too many targets to keep track of,” says one Trump adviser familiar with the discussions. Trump and members of his inner orbit have already outlined possible legal strategies, examining specific federal statutes they could wield in a Republican-controlled Justice Department to go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who delivered Trump’s first indictment of this year.
The FBI’s investigation of over a thousand rioters who breached and trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — officially the largest criminal investigation in Justice Department history — is another area where Trump has stated he would like to reverse course. “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” Trump told host Kaitlan Collins during a CNN town hall in May.
When the broader topic of possible second-term pardons has come up behind closed doors, Trump has at times said that such pardons should be signed at the start of the term, not saved for the later on, according to those who’ve heard him discuss it since last year. Aside from the rioters themselves, Trump has also privately floated issuing a wave of pardons to higher-ranking figures who were scrutinized in Special Counsel Smith’s two main investigations.
“This would be like hitting the delete-key on all of DOJ’s work on these investigations,” a person intimately familiar with the conversations told Rolling Stone in March. In the past several months, when confidants have quipped to Trump that he may have to “pardon yourself,” should he return to the Oval Office, the ex-president has sometimes simply smirked and replied that they’ll have to wait and see.
Another major focus of some of these counter-probes would be “grand jury violations,” says one person familiar with the matter. The counter-probe of those alleged “violations” is the surest sign yet that in a second Trump administration, the Justice Department would seek to investigate the special counsel’s use of grand juries in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases. (Indeed, Trump has already vowed to sic a special counsel on President Biden if he beats him in 2024.)
Some of these “special prosecutors” wouldn’t even be based out of the Justice Department, as special counsels typically are. In some of these private Trumpworld legal plans, some of the “special counsels” would be based out of places like the White House. This idea is nearly identical to the controversial position that Trumpist lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell tried to convince then-President Trump to give her in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Some lawyers and operatives close to Trump have pitched themselves for these kinds of roles, telling either Trump or some of his closest advisers that they’d be more than happy to take the gig in Trump’s possible return to power in 2025.
And along with having dreams of sweeping retribution and purges, the upper ranks of Trumpworld have spent years putting together projects to vet and prepare a new generation of appointments — for “special prosecutor” posts, as well as much else — and administrative talent.
In this informal vetting for Justice Department candidates, former senior Trump aides and well-connected activists have sought lawyers with a track record of loathing DOJ, particularly what they deem its supposedly “liberal,” “left-wing,” or “Marxist” elements. Between these different Trump allies, different private spreadsheets have been created in recent years, some laying out dozens of possible contenders, while some include upwards of a hundred names, sources with direct knowledge of the situation say. Former top Trump White House policy adviser Stephen Miller and other key Trump diehards have contributed names to several of these lists.
Rolling Stone has reviewed one of these internal spreadsheets that has circulated among Trump lieutenants, and the roster is heavy on individuals connected to America First Legal, the Center for Renewing America, and other Trump-backing entities.
Prominent allies of the former president are open about plans to tie the Justice Department more tightly to the White House.
“I recall talking to a senior official in the Trump administration, who said after all of [these investigations] are over, we’ve got to think of a way to bring the Justice Department back into the government,” says Tom Fitton, president of the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch and a close ally of the former president.
The Justice Department has typically enjoyed a degree of insulation from White House control, a norm aimed at avoiding the politicization of prosecution. But Fitton argues that the department should be more “responsive” to a president’s priorities, a belief that Trump and various influential conservatives embrace enthusiastically. “Is the Justice Department going to operate as an entity outside the White House as opposed to an entity that’s controlled by the president, as the Constitution requires?” he says.
Putting it another way: “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” Russ Vought, a former top Trump official who heads the Center for Renewing America, told The New York Times in a story published last month.
“I think there’s an argument that what the Justice Department’s doing to Trump now is criminal,” Fitton tells Rolling Stone, suggesting — of course — that a future administration should launch an investigation into Special Counsel Smith’s work.
Fitton also says the department should revisit Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the FBI probe of the Trump campaign in 2016. Durham, he argues, was a “failure” and acted only as “a glorified inspector general.”
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Once, Special Counsel Durham was supposed to be Trumpworld’s savior, someone who Trump, his allies on Capitol Hill, and large swaths of conservative media were counting on to expose and imprison “Deep State” foes. But when the Durham probe ended earlier this year with lackluster results for a vengeance-hungry GOP, he became much less a hero and more a cautionary tale to the right.
As one conservative lawyer who has discussed “special prosecutor” ideas with Trump in recent months tells Rolling Stone, the guiding principle of this project is simple: “No more John Durham’s — never again.” | US Political Corruption |
As the nation reeled from covid-19, the federal government sent many Americans a financial lifeline.
But some recipients say the covid relief payments have triggered financial distress by jeopardizing their Social Security benefits.
The government has demanded they repay much larger amounts — thousands of dollars in benefits for the poor and disabled distributed by the Social Security Administration.
“The government gave this money to them with one hand. They should not be trying to take it back with the other,” said Jen Burdick, an attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia who has helped many people contest repayment demands.
Jo Vaughn, a disabled 63-year-old in New Mexico, received $3,200 in federal covid relief. Then came a letter from the Social Security Administration dated Aug. 25, 2023, saying she owed the government $14,026.
“They are sending me to a very early grave,” Vaughn said.
The covid clawbacks show the trauma the Social Security Administration can cause when it claims to have overpaid beneficiaries, many of them highly vulnerable, then calls on them to pay the money back.
And the collection efforts illustrate the limitations and dysfunction that have come to define the agency.
Social Security Administration spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann declined to comment for this article or to arrange an interview with the agency’s acting commissioner, Kilolo Kijakazi.
In the wake of a recent investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group, House and Senate members have called for action on problems at the Social Security Administration. The agency has announced that it is undertaking a review of its own, and a House panel is scheduled to hold a hearing on Oct. 18.
Vaughn and other recipients didn’t ask for the covid money. The checks, known as economic impact or stimulus payments, landed automatically in their mailboxes or bank accounts in three installments in 2020 and 2021. The payments, which were based on the recipient’s income, totaled as much as $3,200 per person.
The payments pushed some beneficiaries’ bank balances above the $2,000 asset limit for individuals on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a program for people with little or no income or assets who are blind, disabled, or 65 or over. The limit, which hasn’t been adjusted for inflation in decades, can discourage people from working or saving more than a perilously small amount of money.
In some cases, when the Social Security Administration belatedly noticed the higher bank balances, it concluded the beneficiaries no longer qualified for SSI, according to people affected. Then the agency set out to recapture years of SSI benefits it alleged they shouldn’t have received.
Even as recipients appealed the actions, the agency stopped sending monthly benefit checks.
The ripple effects can disrupt health care, too. In most states, receiving SSI makes someone eligible for Medicaid, so halting SSI benefits can jeopardize coverage under the public health insurance program, said Darcy Milburn of The Arc, an organization that advocates for people with disabilities.
Vaughn, who suffered a disabling injury while working as a cook at a truck stop, said she depends on the $557 she was receiving from SSI each month. It hasn’t come since August, she said.
Her only remaining income, she said, is $377 in monthly Social Security retirement payments.
“I’m afraid of being homeless,” she said by phone. “I don’t want to end up on the street.”
Or even worse, she said in an email: “If I don’t start receiving my money back, well let’s just say I have my will ready.”
Actions Defy Agency’s Own Policy
The covid stimulus payments aren’t supposed to trigger Social Security clawbacks.
Early in the pandemic, the Social Security Administration said that, when assessing people’s eligibility for SSI, it would exclude the payments for 12 months. Later, it said it would exclude them indefinitely.
But what the agency says and what it does — indeed, what it is capable of doing — are often very different, people who study the agency said.
“It’s not clear SSA knows where money in beneficiaries’ accounts is coming from,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“As far as we can tell, SSA simply doesn’t have the tools to implement a permanent exclusion from the resource limit,” Romig said.
The number of people who have received Social Security clawback notices due to covid relief payments is unclear.
What’s more, beneficiaries might not realize stimulus payments could be at the root of alleged overpayments. As a result, they may be ill-equipped to challenge any clawbacks.
“A lot of people have been caught up in inaccurate or improper” overpayment notices “because of stimulus money,” said Burdick, the legal aid attorney in Philadelphia. She estimated that her office alone had seen about a hundred such cases.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, asked the Social Security Administration in September 2021 how many people had their SSI payments reduced or cut off on account of the stimulus payments. In its written response, the agency didn’t say.
At the time, Wyden said the agency’s decision to indefinitely exclude stimulus payments from the asset limit “may have come too late for many struggling families.”
The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, an umbrella group for advocacy organizations, flagged the problem as early as May 2021. In a letter to the Finance Committee, the group said it was concerned that some people would have their benefits reduced “in order to recover overpayments that never should have been assessed.”
Vaughn said she saved her covid stimulus funds to leave herself some money to fall back on.
When the Social Security Administration told her she had been over the asset limit for more than two years, the agency didn’t mention the stimulus payments. But Vaughn reviewed her bank records and concluded the covid payments were the cause.
Lost in the System
Dave Greune of North Carolina said that, in the case of his disabled 43-year-old daughter, Julia, the cause of an overpayment notice was clear.
The reason her assets exceeded the limit, Greune said, was that $3,200 in stimulus payments had been deposited directly into her bank account by the same government now demanding she repay almost twice that amount.
How does he know?
The only funds that flowed into Julia’s account were her SSI payments and the covid stimulus payments, Greune said.
In April 2023, two years after Julia’s last stimulus payment, the agency notified Greune that it had been overpaying her since September 2020.
First it said she owed $7,374.72. Later, it revised that to $6,253.38.
Julia is blind with cerebral palsy and a mental disability, Greune said, leaving her “totally disabled.” The family was saving the stimulus money to buy her a new wheelchair, he said.
In correspondence, the agency pointed to checking account balances as the basis for its finding that Julia exceeded the $2,000 asset limit. It noted that the agency doesn’t count the value of a home, one vehicle, or “a burial fund of up to $1,500.” But it didn’t alert Greune that, according to its own policy, covid stimulus payments shouldn’t count toward the limit. He figured that out himself.
Greune said he immediately filed an appeal online.
In July, at the direction of an agency representative, he drove 45 minutes to a Social Security office in Raleigh and delivered a stack of bank statements and an appeal form.
Greune, 64 and retired from a career in real estate, logged many unsuccessful efforts to follow up by phone. Left on hold for 15 minutes until the call dropped. Left on hold for 46 minutes until the call dropped.
Ultimately, he said, he reached a person who told him she saw no record of the agency having received the appeal he filed online — or the documents he delivered by hand.
In the meantime, Social Security stopped sending Julia’s monthly benefits. The last payment, of $609.34, arrived six months ago, he said.
Late last month, the county government sent Julia a notice that, because the Social Security Administration was stopping her SSI checks, the county was reviewing her eligibility for Medicaid.
“And if we don’t have Medicaid that’s going to be a big problem,” Greune said. “Now I’m really pissed off.”
‘Angst, Lots of It’
In early 2021, about a year after the first economic impact payments, known as EIPs, were distributed, the Social Security Administration issued what it called an “Emergency Message.”
It instructed staff on how to handle the payments and contained information that could have been useful to SSI beneficiaries.
“Develop and exclude the EIP from resources” — in other words, assets — “only when an individual alleges receiving and retaining an amount that may affect eligibility,” it said.
It also told staff to take beneficiaries at their word. “Accept the individual’s allegation,” it said.
Martin Helmer of Denver, 77, said that, when the Social Security Administration made a mistake involving his son’s benefits, the burden fell on him to speak up.
He said he felt he was treated as guilty until proven innocent.
“It was angst, lots of it,” Helmer said, “especially when I saw how hard-ass they were being about everything.”
Helmer manages the benefits for his 40-year-old son, Quinn, who has a mental illness. In July, the Social Security Administration sent a letter alleging in part that, since May 2021, Quinn had received more than $17,000 for which he was ineligible.
Going forward, the agency said, it would reduce his benefits.
Helmer concluded that the main issue was the covid stimulus payments; other than Social Security benefits, that was the only money that flowed into Quinn’s account, he said.
Helmer, a retired auditor and IRS agent, spent several days studying an agency manual. He contested the agency’s action and won.
He worries how other people would fare — and how his son would manage without him.
“I think disabled people and their caretakers have maybe less energy than the average person to deal with something like this,” he said, “when they’re already dealing with a lot.”
Madison Carter of WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
Do you have an experience with Social Security overpayments you’d like to share? Click here to contact our reporting team. | US Federal Policies |
Yuki Iwamura/AP
toggle caption
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he exits the courtroom of his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
Former President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he exits the courtroom of his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
Special counsel Jack Smith is urging a federal judge to reimpose the partial gag order on Donald Trump in his federal election interference case, arguing that the former president continues to try to intimidate witnesses on social media and in his public statements.
The narrow gag order issued last week by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan bars Trump from making statements targeting prosecutors and court personnel as well as inflammatory statements about likely witnesses.
Trump appealed the order, and has asked that the restrictions be put on hold, pending appeal. Judge Chutkan did so temporarily to allow both sides to brief the court on whether a longer pause is merited.
In a filing overnight, Smith said the court should reject Trump's request for a longer hold, and urged that the restrictions be put back in place.
The special counsel's office said that in the few days since Chutkan temporarily lifted the restrictions, Trump "has returned to the very sort of targeting" the gag order prohibits. Smith points to a Truth Social message Trump posted on Oct. 24 after ABC News reported that Trump's last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had testified in exchange for a grant of immunity.
NPR has not independently confirmed the report.
"Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future of our Failing Nation," Trump said in the post, a screenshot of which is included in the government's filing. "I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?"
Smith says that Trump also commented on Meadow's credibility and anticipated testimony in a press conference at a New York state courthouse where the former president faces a civil fraud trial.
"The defendant's targeting included insinuating that if the reporting were true, the Chief of Staff had lied and had been coerced, and the defendant sent a clear public message to the Chief of Staff, intended to intimidate him," Smith writes.
He adds that unless the gag order is reimposed, Trump "will not stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks."
Smith also wants the court to clarify that Trump cannot communicate with witnesses about the facts of the case, including through indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.
More broadly, Smith argues that the restrictions the court imposed were narrow and necessary to safeguard the court proceedings and protect witnesses from intimidation and threats. He also says that Trump has not shown a likelihood of success on appeal, or that the public interest weighs in favor of a stay.
Trump's legal team has until Saturday to respond to Smith's filing. | US Federal Elections |
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
How the Media Can Atone for Enabling the Rise of Trumpism
Democracy suffers when a commercial media system showcases fascist demagogues for profit.
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Democracy suffers when a commercial media system showcases fascist demagogues for profit.
There is no bottom for MAGA’s top man. At a speech delivered on Veterans Day, Donald Trump used rhetoric nearly identical to that used by Adolf Hitler 80 years earlier.
Rather than honoring veterans as one might expect of a political speech on this day, Trump used the occasion to label his adversaries “vermin” — promising that, if elected, he would use his power to “root out” all his political enemies.
The Washington Post’sAaron Blake found the parallels: Hitler frequently used vermin references to justify the murder of Jews and others across Europe, while “Trump has used it more broadly to suggest that his opponents are subhuman” and deserve punishment.
Without calling themselves to account for the damage they've done, media executives will never quit their Trump habit
Parroting Hitler should not be considered normal behavior in any election cycle. But the media have grown used to covering Trump’s extremism as if it’s standard political fare. This time, though, some journalists rightly saw his Veterans Day speech as very dangerous.
“It’s important to emphasize that Trump’s rhetorical excesses are not new. To know anything about the Republican is to know that he, on a nearly daily basis, finds new and needlessly provocative ways to shock, offend, insult, and degrade,” wrote Steve Benen for MSNBC.
What is new, however, is the growing number of reporters and commentators being more explicit in their use of the term “fascist” to describe Trump’s beliefs — and “dictatorship” to describe what his return to power would represent for the future of U.S. democracy.
The media aren’t sounding these sorts of alarms enough, according to Margaret Sullivan, who wrote about the mounting evidence that Trump is indeed a fascist. “The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities,” she said. “Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s ‘freewheeling’ style. They blame the public’s attitudes on ‘polarization,’ as if they themselves have no role.”
Sullivan urges more members of the press to report on the dark prospect of a second Trump presidency. They should “ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with [Trump’s] plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon,” she wrote.
Sullivan is right, of course. The media need to report more on the rise of fascism in America, and they also need to reflect on their role in enabling this.
For decades the former president has capitalized on the media’s obsessive attention to paint an alternative vision of himself — one in which he features not as a twice-impeached, criminally indicted sexual abuser who sought to overthrow a democratic election that he lost, but as a decisive and winning strongman, the only person with the power and charisma to make America great again.
Media execs have played along with Trump’s charade, aware that his tele-presence is a boon for ratings and revenues.
In 2016, then-CBS CEO Les Moonves said that devoting so much airtime to then-candidate Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” At the time, Moonves was praising Trump for the bumper crop of political-ad dollars brought in during the contentious 2016 election, but he was not alone.
Former media executive Jeff Zucker has arguably done more than any single person to burnish the 21st-century caricature of Donald Trump. While an executive at NBC, he greenlit The Apprentice, which remade Trump from a bankruptcy-spawning loser into a boardroom genius with impeccable business savvy.
When Trump entered the political fray in 2015, he did so with an Apprentice tailwind. Zucker, who by then had transitioned to the top job at CNN, trained the network’s cameras on his celebrity candidate while denying equal time to Trump’s Republican opponents. Ratings were also Zucker’s rationale for keeping Trump center stage in 2016.
The media chose Trump in 2016 well before most Republican voters had a chance to vote for any of the other GOP candidates in the race.
And it didn’t end there. In 2020, Mathias Döpfner, head of German media giant Axel Springer, sent a message asking the company’s executives if they wanted to “get together for an hour on the morning on Nov. 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?” Döpfner justified this question by praising the Trump administration for supporting issues, like corporate tax breaks and reining in big tech, that benefitted Axel Springer.
If you’re noticing a pattern, it's this: Democracy suffers when a commercial media system showcases fascist demagogues for profit.
That seems obvious enough, but it’s worth repeating: News media companies rely on ratings and related advertising revenues to survive. In other words, the news business is about putting on a show that will draw the largest numbers of viewers. And Trump — like Hitler and Mussolini before him — is a camera-ready showman.
More important matters like correcting Trump’s many falsehoods or reporting on the troubling consequences of a second Trump presidency are secondary for those who just want to draw more attention to their primetime offerings.
Former executives, like Moonves and Zucker (who for a variety of unsavory reasons have since left their companies), and existing ones, like Döpfner, were saying that as long as Trump’s autocratic extremism makes them richer, there’s no need to worry about the consequences. Never mind that, if elected, he’d likely use his power to undermine media freedom and silence dissenting voices.
The commercial U.S. media system needs to undergo deep reckoning for accommodating the rise of Trumpism. This atonement should be reflected in a shift in the ways large outlets report on Trump, but also by recognizing the commercial incentives that drive media to lead with the Trump Show, damn the far-right repercussions.
Without calling themselves to account for the damage they've done, media executives will never quit their Trump habit — not in 2024, nor at any point after. | US Political Corruption |
If the two-party system is over, say goodbye to the GOP
No Labels, with $70 million in dark money in hand, maintains that the “two major parties [are] dominated by angry and extremist voices driven by ideology and identity politics rather than what’s best for our country.” It is threatening to run a third-party ticket headed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and former Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, or some other bipartisan combination.
Voters are a finicky lot. In 2008, for example, 47 percent were dissatisfied with choosing between Barack Obama and John McCain. Today, a Gallup poll finds 63 percent retrospectively approve of Obama’s performance in office, while the late John McCain is fondly remembered for his heroism during the Vietnam War.
Voters often want more than just two choices. Today, 47 percent say they would consider a third-party candidate. But when those choices are presented to them, voters are often less than enthusiastic. It is hard, for example, to find a wave of public sentiment yearning for a Joe Manchin presidency.
The real threat to the two-party system comes from the Republican Party. Donald Trump destroyed the Republican establishment and transformed the party into his own personal organization. Stunningly, the thrice-indicted Trump is the leading GOP candidate who could be seeking the presidency next year from a jail cell.
Trump’s hold on the GOP stems from the grievances of his mostly white, blue-collar supporters. Reporting to the federal courthouse for his third arrest, Trump posted on Truth Social: “IT IS A GREAT HONOR, BECAUSE I AM BEING ARRESTED FOR YOU.”
Historically, the Republican establishment played a major role in presenting honorable candidates with experience in government who adhered to conservative principles. The Grand Old Party prided itself in nominating Thomas E. Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, the two Bushes, John McCain and Mitt Romney. When another establishment-endorsed candidate, Richard Nixon, sullied the presidency a group of GOP leaders put party loyalty aside and told Nixon that it was time to depart.
Donald Trump’s 2015 descent down the escalator to announce his candidacy was symbolic. It marked the fall of the party establishment and the beginning of a hostile takeover by a talented showman who excelled in the performance aspect of politics. A now-exiled member of the establishment, Liz Cheney, states, “What we’ve done in our politics is to create a situation where we’re electing idiots.”
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd recently told a gathering of Iowa Republicans: “Donald Trump is running for president in order for him to stay out of jail.” Hurd is right. A conviction on any of the charges levied against the former president could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Only the comforts of the White House, and a president armed with a pen who is willing to pardon Trump, can salvage what remains of his life.
Meanwhile, any reports of the Democratic party’s demise are highly overrated. During the past two years, the centrist and progressive wings of the party have united behind President Biden. What opposition there is to a second Biden term centers on one issue: his age. Unlike the third-party candidacy of Strom Thurmond in 1948, who objected to Harry Truman’s civil rights policy, or the challenges by Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam War 20 years later, the policies pursued by the Biden-Harris administration are popular both within the party and without.
If things don’t change, the Republican Party is finished. Republicans are fighting against a political demography that is younger, more racially and culturally diverse and more highly educated. Between 2016 and 2024, there will be 32 million new voters while in the same period, there will be 20 million fewer older voters. Since 2008, young voters have awarded more than 60 percent of their ballots to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and 55 percent to Hillary Clinton. Older voters have given majorities to GOP presidential candidates since 2004, including Donald Trump in 2020.
Unless Republicans bid Donald Trump adieu, the Republican Party will find itself at odds with a younger generation of voters who will shape the politics of the 21st century. Without the ability to adapt, the Republican Party is in danger of fracturing like a shattered piece of glass.
What will come after it is something we can hardly imagine. But it won’t be the two-party system as we know it.
John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book, co-authored with Matthew Kerbel, is titled “American Political Parties: Why They Formed, How They Function, and Where They’re Headed.”
Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | US Federal Elections |
- A CBS News interview destroyed any chance that Kevin McCarthy had in keeping his job as speaker.
- Just a handful of Democrats could have easily crossed over and saved McCarthy on Tuesday.
- But after he tried to blame them for the near-shutdown, Democrats voted unanimously to oust him.
On Sunday, Kevin McCarthy — just hours removed from helping shepherd a stopgap spending bill with bipartisan support that eventually averted a government shutdown — blamed Democrats for the near-failure of the legislation.
While speaking with CBS News host Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation," the California Republican said he had doubts about whether the bill, which passed with mostly Democratic votes, would actually get through the House.
"I wasn't sure it was going to pass," he said. "You want to know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass."
Brennan laughed, noting that it was Democrats who kept the bill afloat, as 90 Republicans voted against it.
And on Tuesday, as the fate of McCarthy's speakership rested among the chamber that narrowly elected him to lead it in January, House Democrats chose not to hand him what could have been the biggest political lifeline of his career.
In a 216-210 vote, McCarthy was ousted as speaker, as eight Republicans joined 208 Democrats in backing a "motion to vacate," which removed him from the position and will now allow for an election for a new speaker.
The day could have turned out much differently, as several centrist Democrats could have been inclined to back McCarthy to retain the speaker's gavel had he agreed to some concessions. But ahead of the vote, McCarthy said that he wasn't entertaining any major concessions from the minority party.
After Democratic leaders showed the "Face the Nation" interview to members on Tuesday, McCarthy's remarks angered members from across the party's ideological spectrum.
Ahead of today's vote on an effort to oust @SpeakerMcCarthy, the House Democratic Caucus watched McCarthy's interview with @margbrennan on Sunday, where he attempted to blame House Democrats for the near-government shutdown.— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) October 3, 2023
WATCH: pic.twitter.com/IwwnMYZitK
Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, a moderate from a district that also backed former President Donald Trump in 2020, is the sort of Democrat who might've helped McCarthy. He even suggested on Fox News last weekend that he was inclined to vote "present," which would have lowered the threshold for McCarthy to remain speaker.
But that didn't happen.
"After I saw Kevin McCarthy's interview with Margaret Brennan, all magnanimity left my body," he told Punchbowl News on Tuesday.
Not one Democrat came to McCarthy's aid, which was a missed opportunity for McCarthy, as even a handful of defections could have given him the requisite votes needed to remain speaker.
House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who last week expressed an openness to voting for McCarthy to keep his position, told CNN on Tuesday that the CBS News interview ended any chance of that happening.
"For McCarthy to go on TV the next day and saying to all the media that the Democrats did this, the Democrats did that, that it was all our fault — Democrats brought the majority of the votes by a wide margin and for him to discredit everything that Democrats have done — everybody got very upset," the veteran lawmaker said.
Without any crossover Democratic votes and continued opposition from several hardline House conservatives, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, McCarthy lost the speaker's gavel.
And on Tuesday evening, McCarthy announced that he won't run for the speakership again.
McCarthy made a range of concessions to conservatives to become speaker earlier this year. But his attempts to pin the near-shutdown on Democrats — which resulted in them shrugging their shoulders at his dilemma — may be one of the biggest blunders in modern politics. | US Congress |
Authorities are taking their search across the border as the manhunt for the Texas man who allegedlyafter they asked him to stop firing off rounds in his yard intensifies.
On Tuesday, the FBI said they were expanding their search for 38-year-old Francisco Oropesa, who fled his Cleveland, Texas, home Friday night after allegedly shooting five people dead, including a 9-year-old boy, into Mexico.
"Francisco Oropesa could be anywhere," FBI Houston tweeted. "The FBI is working with law enforcement agencies across the state, country, and across the border. We're leaving no stone unturned. If anyone has any photos or security camera video they'd like law enforcement to see, please call 1-800-CALL-FBI."
The FBI also posted Oropesa's mugshot and a photo of a tattoo he has on his forearm of a woman with a headpiece.
The FBI said they are combing through hundreds of pieces of evidence and utilizing all available resources to apprehend Oropesa.
"Law enforcement officials are analyzing hundreds of pieces of information from all over related to #ClevelandTXshooting,"FBI Houston tweeted. "Officials are out on foot, in vehicles & inside mobile command centers using all available human & technological resources to gather intelligence, and pursue tips."
On Sunday, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said that Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has offered $50,000 for his capture, and other counties have chipped in $5,000 for a total of $55,000. With the FBI offering $25,000, the total reward money rose to $80,000, FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith said.
A Mexican national, Oropesa was ordered removed by a U.S. immigration judge and. After re-entering the country, he was apprehended and removed again several times over the next seven years, CBS News has learned. Oropesa has a prior conviction in Montgomery County, Texas, for driving while intoxicated and was sentenced to serve time in jail for the offense.
On Sunday, Smith said the search has run into dead ends and authorities have "no idea" where he could be and have "zero leads." He said authorities are hoping the large reward can act as an incentive for someone to come forward with any tips.
"We cannot continue down this path until we get him apprehended and arrested," he said. "We're asking everyone to bring this monster to justice."
happened near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say neighbors often unwind by firing off guns.
A confrontation followed the neighbors walking up to the fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. The suspect responded by telling them that it was his property, Capers said, and one person in the house got a video of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle.
The victims were identified by the Honduran Foreign Ministry as Sonia Guzman, 28; Diana Velasquez, 21; Obdulia Molina, 31; Jonathan Caceres, 18, and Daniel Enrique Lazo, 9. It's unclear how they were related but they were all living in the same house, CBS Houston affiliate KHOU reported.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but that no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
Three children were found covered in blood in the home and were taken to a hospital, but they were uninjured, Capers said. On Sunday he said the children were safe with family members.
for more features. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
WASHINGTON -- About two-thirds of U.S. adults say they are highly concerned about the impact on the national economy if the U.S. debt limit is not increased and the government defaults on its loans, according to a new poll, even as few say they have a solid understanding of the ongoing debt limit negotiations.
The poll shows about 6 in 10 say they want any increase in the debt limit to be coupled with agreed-upon terms for reducing the federal budget deficit. At the same time, Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Joe Biden and congressional negotiators on both sides of the aisle are handling negotiations. Still, slightly more approve of Biden's handling of the situation than of congressional Republicans.
The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 27% say they approve of Biden and 26% say the same about congressional Democrats, while 22% approve of congressional Republicans. Close to half disapprove of each.
Sixty-six year-old Robert Hutchins says he somewhat approves of how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republicans in Congress are handling negotiations.
“At least he’s trying to do something,” the Republican from Milton, Delaware, said of McCarthy's leadership over his conference. “The Democrats want to spend more money and they don’t want any limit to it."
Hutchins said he doesn't have “any confidence whatsoever” in Biden and doesn't believe in abolishing the debt ceiling, as it serves as a constant reminder of the nation's debt load, which currently stands at $31.4 trillion.
Otherwise, “you just think you have an unlimited credit card and you can spend whatever you want,” he said.
Overall, about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say they are following negotiations over raising the debt limit extremely or very closely, and about 4 in 10 are following somewhat closely. Similarly, about 2 in 10 say they understand the situation very well and about 4 in 10 say they understand it somewhat well.
Still, a clear majority — 63% — say they think negotiations over the debt limit should be coupled with terms to reduce the budget deficit. Nineteen percent say the debt limit should be raised without conditions and 16% say it should not be raised at all. Overall, the adults who say they understand the debate best are especially likely to say the debt limit should be increased without conditions — 37% say so, compared with 50% who say it should be tied to terms about reducing the budget deficit.
A default would likely spell catastrophe for the U.S. economy, with spillover throughout the globe, and would prompt a probable recession.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned this week that a national default would destroy jobs and businesses, and leave millions of families who rely on federal government payments to “likely go unpaid,” including Social Security beneficiaries, veterans and military families.
An AP-NORC poll conducted earlier this year also shows little consensus on cuts that would make a dent in the deficit: While most Americans said the government spends too much overall, majorities favored increased spending on popular and expensive programs including Medicare and Social Security.
Similar percentages of Republicans and Democrats say they are following and understanding negotiations, and concern about the economy if the U.S. defaults is widely bipartisan. But about a third of Democrats say the national debt limit should be increased without conditions, while just 6% of Republicans say the same.
Twenty-three percent of Republicans but just 7% of Democrats say the national debt limit should not be increased under any circumstances.
Aaron Loessberg-Zahl, a 33-year-old Democrat from San Jose, California, said the debt ceiling should be raised without conditions, and called the statutory limit on borrowing “arbitrary.”
“Congress already controls the purse strings, they approve the annual budgets for our government,” Loessberg-Zahl said, “and I think that’s plenty of control over the spending.”
He called the debate over whether and how to raise the debt ceiling “not productive” and said he approves of the president’s handling of negotiations.
Loessberg-Zahl said, “My belief is that those people probably don’t understand the full ramifications of what would happen if the country were to default.”
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The poll of 1,680 adults was conducted May 11-15 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. | US Federal Policies |
FIRST ON FOX: Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, is expected to send a letter Thursday morning to the IRS commissioner demanding a halt to "harassment" of conservative organizations.
Vance's letter comes after the IRS informed the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) in a letter, which AAF shared with Fox News Digital, that it would launch an investigation into the watchdog group Sept. 14.
The IRS notified AAF it would inquire whether the organization "operates in accordance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code," according to the letter.
"But, to date, the IRS has neither presented any evidence that AAF has failed to observe the requirements of section 501(c)(3) nor explained why AAF may be at risk of failing to observe those requirements," Vance wrote in the letter.
"I do not need to remind you that the AAF audit follows on the heels of an ugly chapter in the IRS’s history, during which the agency unfairly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny on the basis of their views," he wrote.
Vance seeks information from the IRS about potential bias in selecting audits, citing historical instances of IRS bias against conservative organizations. One example Vance cites was in 2017 when the agency subjected conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status to heightened scrutiny and significant delays.
The IRS admitted to targeting these groups based on their conservative viewpoints beginning in the 2010s, leading to a cleanup of the agency's top leadership, the letter noted.
Additionally, he inquired whether the IRS has declined to pursue audits of progressive or left-wing nonprofits and seeks explanations for those decisions.
The AAF has published exposes on several Biden nominees for senior positions, which led him to withdraw some of their candidacies. It has also published emails revealing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., urged the IRS to audit conservative organizations, as reported last November.
In June, the AAF launched an investigation into the IRS for building a government-run tax filing program that critics argue would give the agency too much power.
AAF made public records requests, first obtained by Fox News Digital, seeking communications and other documents from the IRS and the Office of Management and Budget concerning the creation of an IRS-run electronic tax filing system, commonly referred to as "direct file."
The Inflation Reduction Act, a mammoth Democrat-backed spending bill signed into law last year, included $15 million for the IRS to look into creating a free direct tax return system. Specifically, the legislation required a study by an independent third party examining the idea's feasibility, as well as a report by the IRS for Congress assessing the study, the cost of such a system and taxpayer opinions based on surveys.
An IRS spokesperson told Fox News Digital the IRS cannot confirm or deny current audits.
Fox News' Aaron Kliegman contributed to this report. | US Federal Policies |
HARTFORD, Conn. -- A woman approaches a drop box in the dark with what appears to be handfuls of ballots. At a different drop box, someone else is seen making multiple trips to insert ballots. At yet another, the same car stops on at least three separate occasions, with different people stepping out and heading to the box.
It’s not a trailer for the latest conspiracy movie about rigged elections. Instead, the video footage has become central to a real-world controversy over potential fraud involving ballot drop boxes, a favorite target of right-wing conspiracy theorists since former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
The accusations of drop box fraud are not coming from those pushing fringe election claims or from skeptical Republicans who have long favored eliminating or severely restricting use of the boxes. They are being made by Democrats -- two candidates vying for mayor in Connecticut’s largest city, in a heavily Democratic state that began allowing drop boxes to be used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans have seized on the spat, which is now headed to a legal showdown that could result in a new election, to say it validates their concerns that drop boxes are ripe for fraud.
State Rep. Doug Dubitsky, a Republican, evoked the widely debunked movie “2000 Mules” during a legislative debate over the controversy surrounding the Bridgeport mayor’s race.
“How do we know that it’s only Bridgeport?” said Dubitsky, who represents an area of the state that has grown more conservative in the Trump era. “This exact same thing could be happening in every single municipality in this state. We should get rid of these boxes completely.”
On the surface, the controversy is a local matter: Two candidates are accusing each other of fraud in a municipal election. But its ripple effects travel far beyond the city of 148,000 and could have implications for the elections next year across the country.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has been doubling down on his lies about his loss in the 2020 election as he faces criminal charges related to his attempts to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win. Despite mounds of evidence showing the election was fair and accurate, a solid majority of Republicans still believe it was not.
Among the many conspiracy theories that have fueled that belief on the right are those surrounding ballot drop boxes.
News of the Bridgeport videos has spread through right-wing social media platforms and on far-right media, connecting the controversy to the 2020 stolen election claims. Users have promoted the investigation as evidence for the persistent, false narratives about widespread fraud connected to ballot drop boxes.
The videos and the fact that the claims are being pushed by two Democratic candidates threaten to further inflame criticism from the right that drop boxes are vehicles for election mischief. It's a perception that election officials have been fighting for three years.
“It risks making what is the exception the rule in some folks’ mind,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho who is now a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. “It’s well established that drop boxes themselves are very safe and secure.”
The videos have trickled out in the weeks since the Sept. 12 primary in the Bridgeport mayor's race between incumbent Joe Ganim and his challenger, John Gomes, the city’s former chief administrative officer. Gomes, who lost by 251 votes out of 8,173 cast, filed an election challenge a week later after a video appeared to show a Ganim supporter putting several envelopes into a drop box outside a city hall annex in the early morning.
Ganim, who has denied involvement, is pointing to another batch of videos posted online that appear to show Gomes' supporters making multiple stops at other ballot drop boxes. Gomes has said he has spoken with those shown in the videos and been told they were dropping off ballots for relatives.
In Connecticut, voters using a drop box must return their completed ballot themselves or designate certain family members, police, local election officials or a caregiver to do it for them.
A judge will hear arguments in Gomes’ legal challenge this coming Thursday, with testimony expected over several days. Gomes is asking the judge to declare him the winner or order a new primary election.
The state has launched its own investigation. Some Republican lawmakers, who had raised concerns about the security of drop boxes during the pandemic, said the Bridgeport videos prove they were correct.
“No one can tell me that there are not people across this country, and certainly in this state, certainly in the last couple of weeks, that are not questioning the integrity of our elections. And I’m talking about people in both political parties,” said state Sen. Rob Sampson, the Senate's top Republican on the General Assembly’s Government Elections and Administration Committee. “This is not isolated to President Trump saying the election was stolen in 2020."
Drop boxes are considered by many election officials to be safe and secure and have been used to varying degrees by states across the political spectrum with few problems. A survey by The Associated Press of state election officials across the United States found no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft related to drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election that could have affected the results.
In many cases, drop boxes are placed in locations where they can be monitored by election staff or security cameras. Local election offices typically have procedures to ensure the security of the ballots from the time they are retrieved until they arrive at the election office.
Yet the conspiracy theories and efforts to get rid of them persist. Since the 2020 election, five states have moved to ban ballot drop boxes while six have moved to limit their availability, according to data collected by the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks voting-related legislation in the states and advocates for expanded voter access.
“It’s not the ballot boxes that are the problem,” said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the voter advocacy group Common Cause in Connecticut. “In this particular case, it seems like the problem is the leadership of campaigns that permit that kind of activity, that has staff, that has campaign staff who ... would put ballots in big envelopes and stuff them into the ballot box.”
Democrats, who control the Connecticut Legislature and all statewide offices, have so far been successful in pushing back against attempts to ban drop boxes while taking steps to address the controversy. They've also expressed shock over the videos but urged Republicans to wait for the investigations to play out.
“The one question for today, and that’s going to come up, is do you take a wrecking ball approach and ban everything for everybody else?” House Speaker Matt Ritter, a Hartford Democrat, told reporters late last month. “Or do you try to use more of a scalpel approach in dealing with a situation that we all agree is serious?”
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Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report. | US Political Corruption |
Donald Trump is winning the Republican nomination race in a walk, and it’s been quite the pleasant stroll.
That’s because his opponents can’t make the most compelling argument against Trump — namely, that for myriad, deep-seated reasons he’s poorly suited to represent the GOP and become the country’s president again.
So, the other top contenders are left with more glancing, indirect criticisms that don’t land with the same force, if they land at all. Trump’s opponents tend to say that he’s not electable, or he didn’t deliver on his promises, or we can’t argue about the past, or we can’t have our attention diverted by distractions or we need a new generation of leadership.
This is different than saying that Trump’s poisonously stupid conduct in office and afterwards was completely unacceptable and alienated the middle of the electorate, that he creates his own private realities, that he will say anything without regard for the truth and that he is profoundly selfish, easily distracted and vengeful.
Any other frontrunning candidate with Trump’s qualities and vulnerabilities would have this case made against him every day on the stump, in TV commercials and during debates. But Republican voters have thrown a defensive shield up around the former president. They reject the fundamental criticisms of Trump, nay, are offended by them, so will punish any Republicans who venture to make them.
Criticizing Trump in the GOP is a little like going after the Pope at a meeting of the College of Cardinals or attacking the King of England during a parliamentary debate in the U.K. — he’s a leader and symbol that people feel personally vested in and protective of.
Running against him is akin to fighting with one arm behind your back, except if you throw a punch with your free hand, people are likely to blame you for being overly pugnacious and want that hand tied up, too.
In this context, the electability argument has loomed large. It’s a way of implicitly saying, “Gosh, we all love Donald Trump and wish he’d become president again, but it’s a real shame that it can’t happen.”
There are several problems with this line of attack. One, it’s not clear that it’s true. Yes, Trump has massive baggage and would be an electorally risky choice, but he ran a close race against Biden in 2020, and it’s not crazy to think a rematch would be close again.
Two, the early general election polling isn’t cooperating. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, Trump trails Biden by just .9 percent. Perhaps that would change next year when Democrats turn their political guns on Trump in earnest or as Trump faces potential criminal trials and guilty verdicts. But the data point that everyone uses as the most ready reference on electability looks good for Trump.
It’s especially awkward for Ron DeSantis to make the electability argument, by the way, when he is polling more poorly against Biden and trailing Trump badly.
Three, after Trump defied the conventional wisdom and prevailed against Hillary Clinton in 2016 in a victory that instantly attained mythical status in the GOP, many Republicans aren’t going to believe he can’t win, no matter what the polls or analysts say.
Finally, according to a recent Morning Consult poll, 62 percent of Republicans think Trump is the most electable Republican candidate and just 13 percent think the same of DeSantis. This roughly tracks with the level of support that the two have in the primary, suggesting that people work their way backward on the electability question — they decide whom they support and then conclude that is the candidate who is electable.
The other day in Iowa, DeSantis was asked by a voter why he should be chosen instead of Trump. The DeSantis answer was a careful exercise in indirection. Besides electability, the Florida governor said that, unlike Trump, he’d be able to serve two terms, he’d appoint good people and he’d follow through on his promises.
These are all fair enough, but not exactly compelling. The case that Trump would become a lame duck is attenuated. Most Republicans are thinking of getting rid of Biden as of January 2025, not what Trump’s standing would be after the 2026 midterms when, traditionally, lame-duck status would really kick in. Also, since everyone in the party is so afraid of Trump, it’s hard to imagine him ever being much of a lame duck.
Nor do most Republicans think Trump appointed poor people in his first term — Mike Pompeo, Betsy DeVos and Bill Barr, for instance, were no slouches (although it’s going to be difficult to find cabinet secretaries of similar caliber a second time around). Finally, between Trump’s judges, anti-abortion policies, bombing campaign against ISIS and tough border policies, among other things, most Republicans think he followed through on his promises.
The DeSantis criticisms are like shadows, as if on the walls of Plato’s cave, of more direct criticisms of Trump’s handling of himself and people around him that he doesn’t dare make.
Everyone has seen what’s happened to Chris Christie. The most vocal anti-Trump candidate in the field has ticked up in New Hampshire polling, but has a stratospheric unfavorable rating of 73 percent among Republicans, according to a buzzy Wall Street Journal poll. The latest CNN poll found that two-thirds of Republicans say they would never support him. Christie made the correct point about Trump’s indictments during the first Republican debate — that whatever you think of them, the underlying conduct is awful — and got poor ratings for his performance from voters.
The root of the problem is that Republicans really like Trump and believe, even more than ever after the indictments, that he is being treated unfairly. The conundrum is that it’s impossible to bring Trump’s 75 percent favorable rating down without attacking him, but attacking him brings the possibility of inadvertently getting lumped in with the people treating him unfairly, and hurting yourself more than Trump.
While Trump’s opponents try to figure this one out, he’s enjoying a walk in the park. | US Federal Elections |
Education Department Takes Steps to Hold Leaders of Risky Colleges Personally Liable
Education Department Takes Steps to Hold Leaders of Risky Colleges Personally Liable
Guidance clarifies implementation of long-standing statutory provisions
Today, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released guidance outlining how it will implement long-standing provisions in the Higher Education Act that grant the Secretary authority to require leaders of private colleges that fail to operate in a financially responsible way to assume personal liability for the cost of unpaid debts owed to the Department of Education. The guidance clarifies the circumstances in which the Department may require certain individuals to assume personal liability as a condition of allowing the schools they own or operate to participate in the federal financial aid programs and details the considerations that the Department will take into account when determining whether to require an individual to assume personal liability by signing the institution’s program participation agreement. The Department would then be able to pursue those individuals for the cost of liabilities that are not otherwise paid for by their institutions, including those stemming from closed school and borrower defense discharges.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is canceling the loans of more than a million borrowers cheated by for-profit colleges. But too often, the owners and executives of these colleges escape liability,” said Under Secretary James Kvaal. “Congress gave the Department the authority to make college owners and operators personally responsible for these losses in certain circumstances and we are going to use that authority to hold them accountable, defend vulnerable students, protect taxpayer dollars, and deter future risky behavior.”
“Individuals who control schools and reap substantial profits are responsible for running healthy institutions,” said Federal Student Aid Chief Operating Officer Richard Cordray. “When financially risky schools jeopardize the safety of the government's Title IV funds and take advantage of students, we intend to hold those individuals accountable.”
This guidance clarifies how the Department will implement Section 498(e) of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which specifies that the Department may require individuals who exert significant control at private institutions to assume personal liability. However, prior to this guidance, the Department did not have a practice – even for the riskiest colleges — of requiring individuals to assume personal liability, challenging its ability to hold them responsible for unpaid liabilities.
The Department anticipates it is most likely to require an individual to assume personal liability on behalf of the institutions or groups of affiliated institutions that pose the largest financial risk to the United States, including institutions that annually receive tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars of Title IV funds and institutions with the most serious and significant sets of concerns related to their compliance with federal financial aid rules.
By focusing on the riskiest institutions and the individuals with the ability to make significant decisions regarding the operation of their institutions, the Department will not only be protecting students and borrowers, but also fulfilling Congress’ statutory direction that the Department protect the financial interests of the United States.
To guide the Department’s decision-making, the guidance includes a non-exhaustive list of factors the Department may consider when determining whether to pursue personal liability. These include:
- Civil or criminal lawsuits, settlements, or disciplinary or legal actions by the Department or other state or federal agencies involving federal student aid or claims of dishonesty, fraud, misrepresentation, consumer harm, or financial malfeasance.
- Significant compliance issues, such as findings stemming from program reviews or audits, unpaid liabilities from either of those processes, or findings of a lack of administrative capability.
- An executive compensation or a bonus structure that could significantly affect the financial health of the institution.
The Department will consider these factors when assessing institutions that have demonstrated certain statutory indicators of financial risk, such as significant audit findings, or failing to meet financial responsibility requirements.
Going forward, the Department will generally begin making determinations on a case-by-case basis about whether it will require individuals to assume personal liability when their institution’s program participation agreement is up for renewal or if they undergo a change in ownership. There also may be instances in which the Department accepts other financial protections to minimize the risk of financial losses in lieu of the signature. | US Federal Policies |
Donald Trump biographer Tim O’Brien on Thursday delivered a blistering analysis of Eric Trump’s testimony in his father’s civil fraud trial in New York.
Eric Trump attempted to spin he wasn’t really involved with the financial aspects of the family’s business that are the focus of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million fraud case. Instead, the Trump scion claimed he was more involved in the construction side of the company, even though emails he was shown in court suggested otherwise.
Prior to taking the stand, Eric Trump claimed “I pour concrete” rather than pay attention to the valuation of assets which James says the Trumps routinely overinflated for financial gain.
Eric Trump’s argument is “just so absurd,” O’Brien told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Eric Trump does not have callouses on his hand. Eric Trump has never labored in the hot sun on a highway making sure it’s smooth, the driveway going to Bedminister or wherever else he’s talking about.”
It “sort of highlights the fact that in a family full of people who dissemble and are profoundly unsophisticated and ignorant, Eric Trump is unusually ignorant and unusually unsophisticated,” O’Brien added.
O’Brien further noted the former president didn’t attend court during the testimony of either of his sons. His daughter Ivanka Trump will take the stand next week.
“Good job, dad,” O’Brien snarked. “You’ve led your children through life teaching them that they can try to get by on spin and they can try to get by on falsehoods but at the end of the day you’re going to be left alone like everyone around Donald Trump is because loyalty is a one-way street in the Trump universe and he’s even leaving his son hanging here.”
Eric Trump was “the worst witness you could ever have,” said O’Brien. “Even among his siblings [he] was routinely derided as being incapable and a bit of a doofus.”
Watch the video here:
Watch O’Donnell’s summary of the trial so far here: | US Political Corruption |
Politics Sen. John Fetterman Is Ready to Talk About His Mental Health: 'I Want People to Hear This' (Exclusive) The freshman Pennsylvania senator stunned the nation when he publicly admitted himself to the hospital for depression in February. Now back to work, he tells PEOPLE of the hidden pain that led him to rock bottom By Kyler Alvord Kyler Alvord Twitter Kyler Alvord leads PEOPLE's politics coverage as a news editor for the brand. He joined the publication in 2021 on the crime beat. People Editorial Guidelines Published on April 19, 2023 10:13 AM Share Tweet Pin Email Trending Videos Photo: Celeste Sloman As soon as John Fetterman suffered a stroke on the campaign trail for U.S. Senate last May, he told his family and his staff that he would be going public with the news. With mere days left till the primary election and an even tougher general election ahead if he were to advance, he tweeted from the hospital and explained the situation, aware that it could cost him necessary votes. In the year that's followed, Fetterman has navigated a difficult stroke recovery, an onslaught of ableist attacks, and one of the most expensive Senate races in history to ultimately flip one of Pennsylvania's seats blue. He also, in an unusually public manner for a politician, admitted himself to the hospital for a severe case of depression — just one month after being sworn in to Congress. Shortly after returning home from a 44-day stay in Walter Reed Medical Center's neuropsychiatry unit, Fetterman graciously welcomes PEOPLE into his Braddock, Pennsylvania, home. It's the first time the freshman senator and his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, are speaking with the media since he was discharged, and one of the first real conversations they are publicly having about his mental health. Feeling in many ways transformed, Fetterman, 53, sits down on the couch in his signature Carhartt hoodie and basketball shorts, leans forward and inhales. He's ready to talk. Celeste Sloman 'A Little Melancholic' For years Fetterman handled depression like many people do — that is to say he didn't pay it much attention, accepting as a young man that feeling low was an insoluble element of his personality. "I always treated my depression like I did with losing my hair," he says. "It's just kind of like, 'Oh yeah, that's just part of my makeup.'" It was Gisele, 41, who broached the subject of mental health with her husband in the early years of their marriage, suggesting that he was displaying signs of depression. Fetterman was the rather successful mayor of Braddock at the time — beginning to earn national attention thanks to his big dreams for the small industrial town — and he remembers pushing back on the idea that he had a diagnosable issue, rebutting, I'm just a little melancholic. Maybe a little blue. "I never thought that it was significant enough to go get help," he recalls. "And I, of course, regret that I did not do that." Gisele Barreto Fetterman and John Fetterman. Gisele and John Fetterman Gisele learned in time that she didn't hold the power to fix Fetterman's mental health, but it was a process to adopt that mentality. "In the beginning of our relationship, it was like, 'Why is he so sad all the time? I'm amazing!'" she says. "I think that's what people do: They blame themselves, but the reality is not one person should be who makes someone better. We should not carry that weight and the responsibility." A big part of that realization came from Gisele's own research, which she says began 12 years ago. "I read every book on depression," she says, "and I tried to get him to read those books." He didn't, back then, and she didn't force him. "You could do everything to support someone, but you can't get them through the door," she says. "He had to do that hard part himself." Justin Merriman/Bloomberg via Getty A Storm Brewing Fetterman, who served as mayor of Braddock for 13 years, eventually began looking to heighten his impact. He was elected as Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor in 2018, defeating the incumbent Democrat in a primary election to get on the gubernatorial ticket. In early 2021, a few months after Republican Sen. Pat Toomey announced his intention to retire, Fetterman declared candidacy for United States Senate, intent on filling the vacant seat. Fetterman and Gisele knew that the Senate campaign would not be easy, or kind. (As the second lady of Pennsylvania, Gisele — who was born in Brazil — made headlines for opening up about a racially charged verbal assault, when a woman who recognized her as Fetterman's wife spewed a racial slur at her outside of their local grocery store.) Fetterman's team decided to approach the Senate campaign with the second family's signature lightheartedness, routinely going viral for highlighting the weaknesses of his opponent, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, in clever and outlandish ways. "[It was] about trying to be funny and help people realize that you don't actually have to be quite so ugly," Fetterman recalls of the campaign strategy. Pa. Senate Candidate John Fetterman Trolls Opponent Dr. Oz with 'Welcome Home' Banner Flying over Jersey Shore John Fetterman/Twitter Polling long suggested that Fetterman was favored to defeat Oz, even as he spoke candidly about some of the restraints he was facing amid his stroke recovery. Then funding began pouring into Oz's campaign as Election Day neared to give Republicans a fighting chance at retaining the seat. That's when things started "getting really, really ugly," Fetterman says, equating the attacks to having "a $100 million blow torch turned on you." The attacks cut deep for him and his family, targeting his health and fitness to serve in Congress, and opened a door for media and the public at large to do the same, often veering into ableist territory by failing to acknowledge that the lingering side effects of his stroke would not prevent him from making the important decisions a senator is tasked with. One insult he heard on multiple occasions still appears painful for him to repeat: being called a "vegetable." "These kinds of personal things accelerated the depression," he says, though it wasn't until the nationally televised debate with Oz that something "seismic" shifted in his mental health. John and Gisele Fetterman Open Up About His 'Public' Stroke, Raising Kids on the Campaign Trail: 'No Regrets' John Fetterman and Dr. Mehmet Oz shake hands at the U.S. Senate debate in Pennsylvania on Oct. 25, 2022. Greg Nash/The Hill/Nexstar The Silent Fall "I'll never forget the date. It was October 25," Fetterman says, of course referring to the debate that came on the heels of vicious attacks on his mental fitness and a late surge in polls for Oz. "I knew going into this debate that millions of people were going to be watching. And it wasn't even just for Pennsylvanians watching, this would be kind of national ... [it] would be living in history." Fetterman and his team prepared, prepared and prepared some more, understanding that any misspeak or visible struggle would be picked apart. "But I was still in recovery from the stroke," he reminds. "It would be trying to run a marathon with a broken ankle." Dr. Oz to Debate John Fetterman as Pennsylvania Senate Race Grows Tighter Reviews of his performance on the debate stage included words like "disaster," he remembers. "I don't have any regrets because I believe that I had a responsibility to do the debate, but after that point, to me, that was where the depression really started to set in." By election night, polls suggested that the race could go either way, and when he secured the victory in the wee hours of the morning, he says he felt relieved that he didn't let his supporters down. But standing at a podium with fans cheering his name and his family by his side, he wasn't happy. "After he won, you expect someone to be at their highest and really happy and celebratory," Gisele says. "And after winning, he seemed to be at the lowest. That was, for me, the moment of concern." John Fetterman Defeats Dr. Oz in Critical Pennsylvania Senate Race, Huge Win for Democrats JIM LO SCALZO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock With cameras finally turned away after the election wrapped, Fetterman sank into his lowest place, rarely leaving bed. "I literally stopped eating and drinking and I wasn't functional," he says, noting that he also began missing doses of his heart medication, which was important for his health after the stroke. Through tears, he adds: "There wasn't one person in my life that said, 'Yeah, you really seem great. You sound fine here.'" Not even his children. "When an eight year-old can realize that something's really wrong..." John Fetterman Ditches His Famous Hoodie for Suit on First Day as Senator — and Jokes About Son 'in Shorts' Arriving on Capitol Hill for his swearing in felt a chore, but he had no choice. Even the excitement of a new job didn't wake him up. "My depression was in full force," he says, and he was starting to accept that he could not keep living that way. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty 'One Chance to Address This' "The conversation I had with my team and my family is that I've got to do something or it could end in the most awful way," Fetterman says, remembering his decision to admit himself to the hospital. Asked if he's referring to self-harm, he says: "I realized that that could be an option. I wasn't thinking about self-harm, but I was firmly indifferent to living." "There wasn't one single person in my life that was letting me know, 'John, you're doing all right.' And at that point I realized that there's no good possible outcome. And if I would harm myself, the damage would really be on my family," he says. "I decided that I had one chance to address this." It's rare for a politician to discuss their mental health in the present tense, especially a newly elected U.S. senator whose campaign was already overshadowed by health concerns. But at the point that Fetterman was finally ready to seek treatment — after a lifetime of denying it — his family and team mobilized behind him, ready to set an example for just how far transparency can go. On Feb. 16, Fetterman stunned the nation when a statement from his spokesperson announced that the senator had voluntarily chosen inpatient treatment for clinical depression, a condition that the world was learning he had in live time with some of his loved ones. "I took a sigh of relief," Gisele says of the moment he checked himself in. "I was really happy." She continues: "I think we always read in the news about when someone has done something terrible and tragic, and I would love to read more stories about someone saying, 'Hey, I just checked myself in to get help,' instead of the opposite." He checked in on his oldest son's 14th birthday, making the emotional decision to forgo a scheduled birthday dinner knowing that it would inflict less pain on him in the long run than the alternative of a father suffering. John Fetterman Checks Himself into Hospital for Clinical Depression: 'Getting the Care He Needs' courtesy Gisele Barrato Fetterman Fetterman spent more than six weeks in the neuropsychiatry unit, undergoing daily talk therapy, testing out different medications, exercising and learning to understand what was happening in his brain so that he could better withstand his feelings. He also finally read one of the books on depression that Gisele had been recommending. Fetterman received daily visits from his chief of staff to discuss legislation, and additional visits from colleagues and relatives. Gisele traveled to Maryland once a week to see him. "One of the visits, all of the kids came," he says — Karl, 14, Grace, 11, and August, 9. "And at that point, I was a little nervous. Am I okay? Am I still dad? Because I was wondering how they see me differently." Celeste Sloman The kids, unprompted, found a pile of Post-It notes in his room and used them all up, writing encouraging notes that said things like, Happy you are getting happier, and I am so proud of you, and You will get better, and You are any dad I could ask for. They plastered them on the wall across from his bed. "I got so emotional," he recalls, because the notes reassured him that they wanted him to be right where he was. I'm still okay, I'm still your dad, he thought. He was already feeling changed, and now he had been given permission to take whatever time he needed to complete the transformation. For more from Sen. John Fetterman's emotional sit-down with PEOPLE, subscribe now to the magazine or pick up this week's issue, on newsstands Friday. John Fetterman and Gisele Barreto Fetterman at home in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Celeste Sloman A New Feeling "One of the happiest days of my life was when [my doctor] said to me in one of the sessions, 'I believe that your depression is in remission,'" Fetterman says. "At that moment, I thought [for the first time that] there was a chance I was going to be able to be fully back with my family, that I was going to be back to being a senator and serve the people of Pennsylvania and my constituents. I mean ... that really, that was such a turn." He says he decided to leave Walter Reed on March 31 when he felt, for the first time, like life was a joyful thing, not just "back to bearable" like it had been before. "When I first checked in, I never thought I would be where I'm at here," he says. "To be joyous and to be feeling free of depression ... and to be free of pain, man, it's..." Fetterman struggles to find the words to complete his thought, so Gisele jumps in: "It's a first." Now, the once-skeptical senator is on a mission to get others to address their feelings, even if they haven't reached a breaking point yet. "I don't care if you're a liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, we all can be depressed — and we all can get made healthier," he says. "Go to the doctor or whoever you're able to. Address your depression. I was skeptical it would make anything better, but it did. It works. And I'm so grateful." If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor. | US Congress |
A showdown vote will unfold Tuesday to determine House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fate.
Hard-line Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is leading the charge against McCarthy. He introduced the motion to vacate late Monday after criticizing how McCarthy has handled spending and budget issues since Republicans retook majority control of the chamber.
Latest headlines:
Democrats don't plan to save McCarthy's speakership
During a more than two-hour caucus meeting, Democrats were strongly encouraged to vote to not support Speaker McCarthy as he fights for his job, sources tell ABC News.
"It is now the responsibility of the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. "Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair."
Several Democrats said they don't plan to bail McCarthy out.
"We're not voting in any way that would help save speaker McCarthy," Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said.
Vice Chair of House Democratic caucus Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said, "the leadership put out the facts and the caucus heard from a lot of members… we need a functioning government and speaker McCarthy has shown he cannot govern."
Has an effort to remove a House speaker ever succeeded?
A motion to vacate has only ever been voted on once, in 1910, in an effort to boot then-Speaker Joseph Cannon. The effort failed.
In 2015, then-Rep. Mark Meadows filed a resolution to force a vote on then-Speaker John Boehner’s leadership. But because Meadows didn’t introduce it on the House floor, it wasn’t taken up for consideration.
While history shows previous such efforts over the years have always failed -- it's possible this one could succeed.
Read more from ABC's Tal Axelrod here. | US Congress |
New laws restrict helping voters. Why Asian Americans feel targeted.
New voting laws in Republican-led states impose criminal penalties or fines for helping people to vote. Asian American and Asian immigrant communities feel that the laws – which restrict, for one, translation services – especially target them.
| Washington
For a century, the League of Women Voters in Florida formed bonds with marginalized residents by helping them register to vote – and, in recent years, those efforts have extended to the growing Asian American and Asian immigrant communities.
But a state law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May would have forced the group to alter its strategy.
The legislation would have imposed a $50,000 fine on third-party voter registration organizations if the staff or volunteers who handle or collect the forms have been convicted of a felony or are not United States citizens.
A federal judge blocked the provision this week. But its passage reflects the effort by Mr. DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, and other GOP leaders to crack down on access to the ballot. Florida is one of at least six states, including Georgia and Texas, where Republicans have enacted voting rules since 2021 that created or boosted criminal penalties and fines for individuals and groups that assist voters. Several of those laws are also facing legal challenges.
In the meantime, voting rights advocates are being forced to quickly adapt to the changing environment. Before the ruling in Florida, for instance, the League of Women Voters started using online links and QR codes for outreach. It removed the personal connection between its workers and communities and replaced it with digital tools that are likely to become a technological barrier.
“If there’s not access, in terms of language, we can’t get to as many people, which particularly affects AAPI voters,” Executive Director Leah Nash said, referring to the state’s Asian American and Pacific Island population, which has grown rapidly and where more than 30% of adults have limited English proficiency. “If we just give someone our website or QR code to go register, we don’t know for sure if they’re doing it and we like to get as many people registered to vote as possible.”
In states where penalties are getting tougher, the developments have sowed fear and confusion among groups that provide translators, voter registration help, and assistance with mail-in balloting – roles that voting rights advocates say are vital for Asian communities in particular.
In a number of states, language barriers already hamper access to the ballot for a population that has been growing rapidly. Asian, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander populations grew 35% between 2010 and 2020, according to Census data. The new laws in mostly Republican-led states are seen by many voting groups as another form of voter suppression.
“It’s specifically targeting limited English proficiency voters, and that includes AAPI voters,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Atlanta.
Ms. Yoon added that record turnout for the 2020 elections in Georgia influenced the Republican-dominated legislature to pass sweeping voter restrictions: “It’s not a coincidence,” she said.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in June that raises the penalty for illegal voting to a felony, upping it from a misdemeanor charge that was part of a sweeping elections law passed two years earlier.
Alice Yi, who is Chinese American, used to help translate in Austin, Texas, but said the new law isn’t clear about whether good faith mistakes will be criminalized and worries that she could get into trouble by offering assistance.
Ms. Yi recalls being approached during a 2022 primary election by a man who was Vietnamese American and asked for help because he hadn’t voted before and didn’t speak English. She said she was immediately worried she could face consequences if she helped him.
“This is the fear I’m facing,” she said.
Now, she said, she will help her father vote, but no one else.
But voting rights supporters like Ashley Cheng – also in Austin – remain committed to reaching Asian voters, despite the threat of jail time.
Ms. Cheng, the founding president of Asian Texans for Justice, recalls discovering her mother was not listed in the voter rolls when she tried to help her vote in 2018. They never found out why she wasn’t properly registered. Advocates say this highlights flaws in the system and illustrates how volunteers are essential to overcoming them.
The group’s own research has found that roughly two-thirds of Asian voters in Texas were highly motivated to vote in the 2022 midterm elections. Ms. Cheng said that desire amplified her enthusiasm to help the community get its votes counted.
“It’s really easy to feel like, ‘Oh, I would love to just like not try anymore,’” she said. “But, I think about people like my mom and so many others in the Asian diaspora who live in Texas who have that experience of wanting to vote but not being able to, for whatever reason, are not feeling like it’s accessible.”
For instance, some 34% of Asian American adults in Texas have limited English proficiency, according to 2022 data from Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIA Vote), a nonpartisan Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy group.
Farha Ahmed, an attorney in Texas, said the increased liability in helping these marginalized communities access the ballot box forced her to decide against continuing as an election judge, a position that administers voting procedures and settles disputes concerning election laws.
“There’s not a lot of resources and there’s not a lot of protection,” said Ms. Ahmed, who lives in Sugarland, just outside Houston. “Election judges want to help make it easy for people to vote, but with these new laws in place, they’re very unsure of where is their liability when they’re really just trying to do their best to help.”
Before Florida and Texas, Georgia lawmakers overhauled that state’s election laws.
A section of Georgia’s 2021 election bill made it a misdemeanor to offer a voter any money or gifts at polling places, a provision that included passing out water and snacks for those waiting in lines. Attempts to get a court to toss out the ban on snacks and water have so far been unsuccessful.
James Woo, the communications director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said he won’t even get his parents a drink of water while helping them with their ballots.
“It’s simple things like that, which would have been like a conversation starter or just like helping them throughout the process, might be viewed as like something illegal I’m doing,” he said.
This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report. | US Federal Policies |
EXCLUSIVE: The White House says the continuing resolution being contemplated by House Republicans to continue funding the government would eliminate 800 border agents and trigger "a windfall for drug cartels."
Congress is currently negotiating a continuing resolution to extend the current year’s funding, but without passing a deal by Sept. 30, it risks sending the government into a partial shutdown.
Fox News Digital obtained a memo from White House deputy press secretary and senior communications adviser Andrew Bates titled: "Extreme House Republicans threaten to shut down the government unless their extreme agenda is followed."
Bates starts the memo by referencing a series of sanctions the Biden Administration imposed against individuals and entities for their role in drug trafficking.
"While President Biden is focused on holding drug traffickers accountable and disrupting the flow of illicit drugs, House Republicans are proposing an extreme continuing resolution that would eliminate 800 CBP agents and officers, allowing 50,000 pounds of cocaine, more than 300 pounds of fentanyl, more than 700 pounds of heroin, and more than 6,000 pounds of methamphetamine to enter our country," Bates wrote.
Bates wrote that Republicans have been pushing "this radical, dangerous agenda for months."
But House Republicans have been attempting to include in a CR the "Secure the Border Act" -- H.R. 2 -- in different versions of continuing resolutions to keep the government open past Sept. 30. The GOP bill includes significant border security measures.
The White House says that the House GOP CR would include roughly an 8% cut for most non-defense spending across the government from current spending levels and that this would force certain cuts at the Department of Homeland Security that would adversely affect border security.
"Every year of this administration, President Biden has fought for unprecedented funding to secure our border and repair the broken system he inherited from his predecessor," Bates wrote, in a swipe at former President Trump. "And every year, House Republicans have voted to stop President Biden from gaining those resources."
Bates said Biden recently called for $4 billion in his supplemental funding request to address the "immediate needs" of the Department of Homeland Security to "safely and humanely manage the Southwest border."
"But House Republicans aren’t acting on it," Bates wrote, adding that an "Extreme House Republican Shutdown would impose enormous costs on the Border Patrol agents whose positions they want to eliminate, including forcing thousands of law enforcement officers to work without getting paid."
Republicans note that millions of illegal immigrants have been crossing the border under the Biden administration, a vast increase from the numbers crossing when Trump handed over power.
The GOP bill would restart construction of the wall at the southern border; include a mandate for 22,000 minimum Border Patrol agents; allow for additional retention bonuses for agents; restrict funding for processing of illegal immigrants into the U.S., and for non-governmental organizations to provide services.
Bates referenced the last government shutdown, citing a report that said border patrol agents were working without pay and federal immigration proceedings and thousands of hearings had been canceled.
"The bipartisan budget deal that both parties in both chambers of Congress and President Biden agreed to invests in our national security, including at the border. Everyone else who made that bipartisan agreement – including Senate Republicans – is honoring their word," Bates wrote.
The White House memo comes after House Republicans passed a procedural hurdle on government funding on Tuesday night after a week of infighting among GOP lawmakers.
Lawmakers voted 216 to 212 late Wednesday to advance four appropriations bills, teeing them up for debate and final vote sometime this week.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., after the bills were passed, said lawmakers would likely vote on a continuing resolution Friday after working to advance the four spending bills.
But the House GOP’s current CR proposal — which would cut government spending by about 8% from this year’s enacted funding levels for 30 days and includes measures from Republicans’ border security bill — has been labeled a non-starter in the Democratically-held Senate.
The Republican immigration measure would also restrict the use of the CBP One app, which has been expanded by the Biden administration to allow migrants to make appointments to be paroled into the U.S. Separately, it would also authorize an additional $110 million in grants to law enforcement agencies in border states to increase border security and increase drone flights at the border.
The bill would also require the DHS Secretary to submit a report on whether Mexican drug cartels meet the criteria for being designated as a foreign terrorist organization, and would re-establish the Remain-in-Mexico policy, which was used by the Trump administration to keep migrants in Mexico outside of the U.S. until their hearing took place at a courtroom at the border.
The House and Senate are also still far apart on their 12 individual appropriations bills to fund the government for the next fiscal year.
Fox News' Adam Shaw and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. | US Congress |
WASHINGTON ― Staunch conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is in the spotlight after launching a bid for the speaker’s gavel this week, a race that is sure to provide even more drama and chaos than the unprecedented ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
But one critical aspect of Jordan’s history that has been omitted by most Beltway publications is the prominent role he played in spreading lies about the 2020 election and rallying supporters to contest the results. The extraordinary effort led by former President Donald Trump, who has endorsed Jordan’s bid for speaker, led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who co-chaired the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the insurrection, said in a speech at the University of Minnesota this week.
“Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election,” she added.
Jordan, who now chairs the House Judiciary Committee, refused to cooperate with the select committee regarding his communications with Trump as the attack was occurring, defying subpoenas for testimony.
Trump spoke on the phone with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of Jan. 6. Jordan has never divulged the nature of the conversation, saying only that he had spoken to Trump “a number of times” that day.
He has said he had “nothing to do with” the attack on the Capitol.
Jordan also phoned then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows while the attack was underway, according to former Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
“They had a brief conversation,” Hutchinson told the committee. “In crossfire, I heard briefly what they were talking about. I heard conversations in the Oval [Office] dining room at that point talking about the ‘Hang Mike Pence’ chants.”
Jordan also sent a text to Meadows on Jan. 5 outlining a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, had the authority to block the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
Jordan was also actively involved in spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election before and after it had taken place, baselessly alleging fraud had occurred in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. Many of his false claims were aired again and again in repeated appearances on Fox News.
In October, the month before the election, Jordan claimed that Democrats “are trying to steal the election, after the election.” He appeared at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Pennsylvania after the state had already been called for Biden, urging supporters to keep up the pressure.
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, Jordan urged Republicans to “unite and fight for President Trump” by objecting to the certification of the 2020 election in Congress.
“He has fought for us, the American people. ... It’s time for us to fight for him and the Constitution,” Jordan said in an interview with Newsmax.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, on Thursday lauded Jordan for his college wrestling career and his education credentials. Trump wrote in a post to his Truth Social platform that Jordan “has my complete & total endorsement” in the race for House speaker.
Six former wrestlers alleged that Jordan as an assistant coach knew about an Ohio State University doctor who had been molesting student-athletes. Jordan has denied any knowledge of the abuse.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) is also running for the speaker job. Both he and Jordan are expected to make their case to the entire House GOP conference in a closed-door forum next week. | US Congress |
University of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger may have held on to an ID belonging to one of the four killed in the shocking November stabbings, sources claimed this week.
Kohberger, 28, was arrested in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30 – six weeks after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were murdered at their off-campus home in Moscow.
In addition to DNA evidence tying Kohberger to the grisly scene, an unsealed search warrant suggested police found unspecified IDs in the glovebox of the doctoral student’s car, NewsNation reported.
“It’s a big deal. That is a smoking license,” retired FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer told the network’s Chris Cuomo of the possible discovery, which cannot be confirmed due to a gag order on the case.
“Just like the [knife sheath] was a smoking sheath found next to [Madison Mogen’s body] with his DNA on that clasp, it’s the same thing in this situation. Why would he have an ID related to one of those people from that house?”
Coffindaffer appeared on the network alongside trial attorney Mark Geragos, who surmised that the ID find, if true, would be “bad” for Kohberger.
The rumor that Kohberger may have kept identification of someone from the Moscow house emerged shortly after news broke police were investigating whether the Pennsylvania native contacted one of the victims prior to the murders.
“If that’s true, why do people stalk? They stalk because they’re feeling persecuted, and this is a way that they can exact their revenge,” Coffindaffer told Cuomo.
Coffindaffer’s remarks echoed those of former FBI investigator Pete Yachmetz, who told The Post earlier this year that Kohberger may have struggled with an “incel complex.”
“I believe a continued stabbing of a victim indicates … an uncontrollable rage and extreme anger,” Yachmetz said, referring to the accused killer’s “long history of interpersonal problems.”
At the time of the killings, Kohberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice at Washington State University in Pullman, just 15 miles from Moscow.
Search warrants unsealed last month also revealed the trove of disturbing items – including a gun, several knives, and a black face mask – that investigators took from Kohberger’s parents’ home following his dramatic arrest.
Kohberger, who has not yet entered a plea to four counts of murder and one of felony burglary, is currently in custody in Latah County, Idaho. He is due back in court on June 26. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans plan to hold their first hearing in September in their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
The event is expected to begin at 9:30 a.m. Watch the hearing the in player above.
The hearing — scheduled for Sept. 28 — is expected to focus on “constitutional and legal questions” that surround the allegations of Biden’s involvement in his son Hunter’s overseas businesses, according to a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee.
Republicans — led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have contended in recent weeks that Biden’s actions from his time as vice president show a “culture of corruption,” and that his son used the “Biden brand” to advance his business with foreign clients.
The White House has called the effort by House Republicans in the midst of the presidential campaign “extreme politics at its worst.”
“Staging a political stunt hearing in the waning days before they may shut down the government reveals their true priorities: To them, baseless personal attacks on President Biden are more important than preventing a government shutdown and the pain it would inflict on American families.,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, said in a statement Tuesday.
McCarthy announced the impeachment inquiry after facing mounting pressure from his right flank to take action against Biden or risk being ousted from his leadership job. At the same time, the speaker is struggling to pass legislation needed to avoid a federal government shutdown at the end of the month.
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Sep 14 | US Congress |
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Saturday unveiled their stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown set to begin next weekend. But with just five legislative days left until the deadline, Congress has little room for error.
Just two and a half weeks into the job, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to go with a two-step continuing resolution, or CR, over a more typical funding extension covering the entire federal government. The untested funding approach is aimed at appeasing far-right agitators in his GOP conference who despise CRs.
The House is expected to vote as early as Tuesday to give members 72 hours to read the text of the bill, according to two people familiar with matter. The plan does not include budget cuts or aid for Israel.
Under the two-step strategy — which Johnson and others have dubbed a “laddered CR” but which others have likened to a step stool — several spending bills needed to keep the government open would catch a ride on a short-term bill until Jan. 19, while the remaining bills would go on a CR until Feb. 2.
One House Republican, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, quickly voiced his opposition to the plan shortly after it was released.
"It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose," Roy tweeted. "My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days — for future “promises.”
The plan is designed to avoid a messy shutdown showdown right before the holidays and buy Johnson and House Republicans more time to pass individual spending bills, but also create a sense of urgency with staggered funding cliffs. But it remains to be seen if the plan can pass the House, much less the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has dismissed the two-tiered approach.
“I think we’ll avoid a shutdown,” Johnson told the New York Post earlier this week.
The laddered plan has the backing of Congress’ most conservative members, including Republicans who normally never vote for stopgap bills. If Johnson could get a temporary funding bill passed with only Republican votes, that would help him notch an early win among conservatives.
“I like the ladder approach,” said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus. “I think if we try to pass some appropriations bills, we’re doing better than we’ve done in the past.”
But Democrats in both chambers have made it abundantly clear that they hate this idea, as does the White House — all of whom want a simple extension of government funding without any gimmicks. Democrats’ unified opposition to the laddered CR could mean that the House will ultimately have to swallow whatever clean or relatively clean CR gets passed by the Senate.
“I want a clean CR,” declared Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York all but ruled out the two-tiered approach when pressed by NBC News on Thursday. “A continuing resolution that is at the fiscal year 2023 levels is the only way forward because that’s the status quo,” he said, advocating for a “clean” CR.
Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., teed up a vote on a separate stopgap measure, setting the wheels in motion for action next week. The Democratic-led Senate is eyeing a clean continuing resolution that would run through mid-January, without additional funding for Ukraine, Israel and the border, according to two sources directly involved in the process.
But Schumer would likely need a time agreement from all 100 senators to fund the government by Friday’s deadline, something Senate hard-liners will be reluctant to give.
“I implore Speaker Johnson and our House Republican colleagues and learn from the fiasco of a month ago. Hard-right proposals, hard-right slash and cuts, hard-right poison pills that have zero support from Democrats will only make a shutdown more likely,” Schumer said in a floor speech.
What’s clear is that after last month’s public GOP civil war over the speaker’s gavel, Republicans have little appetite for shutting down the government. Even some hardcore conservatives, like Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., said they are willing to vote for a CR to keep the government open and don’t care how it’s structured.
“I’m open to supporting a CR, and if you’ve been following me, that’s a 180-degree turn,” said Bishop, a Freedom Caucus member who is running for North Carolina attorney general.
He said his wife recently asked what was happening in Congress this week. He replied: Figuring out “what the features of the CR are going to be.”
“I just don’t think that Americans care that much,” Bishop added. | US Congress |
The number of populist leaders around the world has fallen to a 20-year low after a series of victories for progressives and centrists over the past year, according to analysis from the Tony Blair Institute showing the number of people living under populist rule has fallen by 800,000 in two years.The research claims 2023 could be an equally decisive year for populism, with critical elections in Turkey and Poland. Those two elections could see two of the most influential populist governments in the world fall, though that may yet require divided opposition parties in both countries to form clearer coalition programmes than they have managed so far.Of the populists who lost power, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Slovenia’s Janez Janša were defeated in relatively close elections in 2022, while Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines was limited to one term in office and could not run for re-election. In Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa was driven out of office by protests.The report says 1.7 billion people were living under a populist leader at the start of 2023, compared with 2.5 billion in 2020. It says that populism on both left and right is defined by two claims – that a country’s “true people” are locked into a moral conflict with “outsiders” and, second, that nothing should constrain the will of the “true people”.Rodrigo Duterte: could not stand for second term. Photograph: Bullit Marquez/APMuch of the decline in populism has occurred in Latin America, notably with the defeat of Bolsonaro in Brazil, the report said, but also with the election of a generation of moderate leftists across Latin America that have “disavowed populist rhetoric and focused on progressive economic and social rights rather than the populist left’s historic focus on industrial nationalisation”.The report also notes that in the US midterm elections, a majority of candidates endorsed by Donald Trump who espoused rightwing nationalism and conspiracy theories failed to be elected and underperformed against moderates.“After having defeated several moderate Republicans in swing-state primary elections, the Trump candidates then lost most of these races in November, costing the Republicans control of the Senate and several governorships. Most notably, they lost every state-level election for offices involving election administration in swing states,” the report said.“While Congress blocked Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, US voters blocked his followers’ efforts to administer future ones in 2022.” But the report warns that this defeat of Trumpist rejection of democracy may not signal the long-term defeat of cultural populism across the US.The report broadly defines populism in three categories: cultural populism, which has a rightwing ethno-nationalist appeal; socioeconomic populism, which appeals to those on the left; and anti-establishment populism, which focuses on targeting elites.It says cultural populism still has major sway in US politics, regardless of the defeat of Trump-endorsed candidates and doubts over the prospects of the former president in 2024, pointing to the views of Ron DeSantis, likely to be another key contender. “Even if Trump loses, cultural populism is likely to remain strong within the Republican party,” it says.Donald Trump: his candidates lost most races. Photograph: Andy Jacobsohn/AFP/Getty ImagesThe report – Repel and Rebuild: Expanding the Playbook Against Populism – claims the remaining examples of populist governments around the world (seven out of 11) almost entirely comprise rightwing cultural populists, as opposed to economic or anti-establishment populists.But cultural populist governments have struggled to form effective governments, especially when faced by economic challenges or complex issues such as Covid, the report claims, pointing out that four fell from power in 2022 – in Brazil, the Philippines, Slovenia and Sri Lanka.The report, however, warns strongly against premature claims of populism’s defeat, pointing out that in 2022 populists were part of election-winning coalitions in Italy, Israel and Sweden. Marine Le Pen was defeated by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, but her party did well in the legislative elections.In the UK, the Conservative party is likely to face a challenge from the populist rightwing party Reform UK, which has vowed to put up candidates against all parties rather than continue with Ukip’s 2019 pact not to stand against Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.While Richard Tice’s party is unlikely to win a seat in the next election, it is polling at about 8% of votes, and the bulk of these would come from disgruntled Conservative voters. It could have greater success if Nigel Farage, who led Ukip and the Brexit party to much wider prominence, becomes more involved.The institute argues that anti-populist mainstream parties may have to recognise they need a different anti-populist playbook when they are in power from the one used by mainstream parties when the populists are in power.Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: government in grave jeopardy. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesIt says mainstream parties should have a clear, substantive policy agenda of their own and not focus on negative campaigning against populist challengers, since populist challengers will always argue that their core issues are under-addressed by mainstream politics. The report says mainstream parties must realise voters are increasingly tired of rhetorical excess that ignores the problems a country faces.The report’s author, Brett Meyer, said it showed a trend towards progressive centrism in a number of countries. “Centrists continued to roll back the frontiers of populism in 2022, with the number of populists in power down to a 20-year low,” he said.“This is in large part down to the success of progressive centrism over populism across the Americas as progressive centre-left leaders replaced the old, populist left. Populism also suffered a significant blow in the US midterms.”But the fate of populism may turn this year on elections in Poland and Turkey, where Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is in grave jeopardy. “By the end of 2022, Turkey had the deepest negative interest rates in the world when adjusted for inflation and the lira was the worst performer in emerging markets relative to the dollar,” the report said, warning that the Turkish president was willing to talk up conflicts with Greece or the Kurds to excite nationalist support. | US Federal Elections |
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SecurityWeek: Moving to clamp down on the growing scourge of SIM-swapping and port-out fraud, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has unveiled new rules mandating telcos to give consumers greater control of their mobile phone accounts. Under the new rules, wireless carriers are required to notify customers of any SIM transfer requests, a measure designed to thwart fraudulent attempts by cybercriminals. The FCC has also revised its customer proprietary network information and local number portability rules, making it more challenging for scammers to access sensitive subscriber information.
The new protective measures (PDF) are meant to address SIM-swapping and port-out attacks widely documented in cybercriminal attacks against businesses and consumers. The attack technique is used to hijack mobile accounts, change and steal passwords, bypass MFA roadblocks and raid bank accounts. Studies have found that major mobile carriers in the US are vulnerable to SIM-swapping with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) receiving thousands of consumer complaints every year.
The new protective measures (PDF) are meant to address SIM-swapping and port-out attacks widely documented in cybercriminal attacks against businesses and consumers. The attack technique is used to hijack mobile accounts, change and steal passwords, bypass MFA roadblocks and raid bank accounts. Studies have found that major mobile carriers in the US are vulnerable to SIM-swapping with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) receiving thousands of consumer complaints every year. | US Federal Policies |
History repeats itself, as Karl Marx memorably said, first as tragedy, second as farce—and there is surely no more farcical figure on the contemporary scene than soon-to-be-ex-Rep. George Santos (R-NY).
Donald Trump, of course, was the tragedy: a con man who, even to this day, is able to hoodwink a hundred million people, through innate charisma and the time-tested techniques of the demagogue.
George Santos, then, is the farce: a con man whose lies were so transparently ridiculous, whose grift was so glaringly obvious, that he will go down in history (and perhaps a Netflix limited series) as a clownish figure, at once rube and knave, who sowed the seeds of his exile through a series of ludicrous self-owns.
I admit, I’ve loved the Santos story since the beginning. Where Trump’s corruption and deceit have torn apart this country, Santos’s was merely laughable. And it kept getting better. First there were the made-up resume items: schools he never attended, a firm he never worked out. That was pretty ordinary.
But then things got weird: Santos said his mother died on 9/11, which she did not. He said his grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, which she was not. He said his company had four employees killed in the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre, which it did not. Gradually, the lies seemed pathological rather than calculating. The man simply could not help himself.
As someone who once wrote an entire book on a charlatan (an 18th century heretic and quasi-cult-leader named Jacob Frank), I couldn’t look away.
And then came the wild stuff, like claims that he won a college volleyball championship, produced a Broadway show, and starred in Hannah Montana. Sometimes the truth was even stranger than the fiction, such as Santos’s drag persona Kitara Ravache, which he still officially denies despite clear photographic evidence.
Indeed, like a good TV drama, some of the juiciest bits were saved for the finale: today’s damning House Ethics Committee Report, which was unanimously approved (when was that last happened in Congress?) and which likely spelled the end of Santos’s House career, as he today announced he would not seek re-election.
Get this: Santos founded a consultancy, recommended it to colleagues without mentioning that he was a co-founder, and used $50,000 in proceeds to pay off his credit card debts. He used at least $4,000 worth of campaign funds on Botox and other cosmetic procedures. The guy even used campaign funds to pay for OnlyFans.
You can’t make this stuff up. I mean that literally: if you made it up, no one would believe it.
And throughout it all, after every conclusive refutation of his lies, Santos responded with imitation MAGA rage, lashing out at the media for covering irrelevant stories (such as his own corruption) rather than what real Americans care about (such as the Biden Crime Family).
Indeed, as has been well observed, the entire MAGA movement is filled with grifters. Steve Bannon with his fraudulent ‘Build the Wall’ campaign, Alex Jones with his nutritional supplements, Paul Manafort, George Papadapoulos, and of course, Trump himself, with his fraudulent university, fraudulent foundation, and even fraudulent steak and wine brands. Election denial itself spawned a whole cottage industry of previously-unknown “experts” who got rich telling the MAGA base what it wanted to hear, from General Michael Flynn on down.
In a way, Santos was just one of many MAGA grifters, but he was just so bad at it. The baroque lies, the self-contradictory justifications, even the rage was studied, learned—and as fake as that Baruch College diploma. It was as if Santos had learned how to perform MAGA rage by binge-watching Tucker Carlson, but had never actually felt it.
That’s the thing with confidence men: you have to make the mark believe that you believe it. You have to sell the lies so well that they appear more truthful than the truth. Just look at Trump—the guy has been conning people so long, he appears to have even conned himself. Or maybe that’s just part of the con.
But Santos just couldn’t quite sell it. His performance was camp—bravely maintained until the bitter end, but a failure nonetheless. The faux-preppy sweater under the blazer, the Finance Bro vest, even Santos’s looks were a kind of simulacrum of the characters he was trying to play. He never really passed.
Alas, in real life, the Santos saga will not have a happy ending, at least not for its protagonist. He already faces numerous criminal charges for wire fraud, theft of public funds, and making false statements to Congress. The Ethics Committee has referred its findings to the Justice Department. And it looks certain that the House will vote to expel him, probably quite soon.
The guy is going to lose his job and probably go to jail, and given his spending habits, he’s probably close to broke.
But as a story, his is a quintessentially American tale. We love a good con artist, from The Music Man to The Great Gatsby, Catch Me if You Can to The Wizard of Oz, Inventing Anna to The Dropout. They mirror the American dream: start with nothing and get rich—a narrative Santos tried and failed to turn to his advantage. They take advantage of the credulous and we love them for it. They even reflect American history itself, which has been filled with grifters since the very beginning, as detailed in books like Stephen Mihm’s A Nation of Counterfeiters and Edward Balleisin’s Fraud: An American History From Barnum to Madoff.
American con artists also reflect something distinctive about the American experience, with its critique of old, European ways and its embrace of novelty and innovation. Why could Elizabeth Holmes (or Sam Bankman-Fried for that matter) snooker smart Silicon Valley investors into putting millions of dollars into a clearly scientifically impossible product? In part because we all want to believe in the quintessentially American capacity for invention – including self-invention. Holmes had her black turtleneck, Santos had those sweaters.
And Donald Trump, of course, has his hair weave, his spray-tan, his ill-fitting suit and long red tie.
That’s the dark side of con men, of course: that they sometimes succeed. We can laugh at George Santos, the camp self-parody of a grifter. But the same American credulousness that got him into Congress has propelled his role model to far greater power, and may yet do so again. If that happens, the last laugh will be on us. | US Congress |
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell begged his supporters for last-minute donations ahead of his election monitoring Monday night.
Lindell, a loyal ally to former President Donald Trump, has been hit with financial woes, telling supporters last week he does not "have any more money." Lindell has been a vocal proponent of Trump's unproven claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud, previously saying that he has spent $40 million of his own money trying to overturn the election.
But he suffered financial losses over his embrace of Trump's election fraud claims, as MyPillow was dropped from several retailers. Lindell has said his company lost $100 million amid what he previously described as a "massive, massive cancellation" in an interview with Minnesota newspaper the Star Tribune. He is also facing defamation cases brought by voting machine manufacturers Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic and by Eric Coomer, a former Dominion employee.
Facing financial pressure, Lindell asked his supporters to donate to him ahead of Tuesday's elections.
Millions of Americans from at least 37 states will head to the polls Tuesday to vote in statewide and local races. Among the most notable elections are gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi, legislative races in New Jersey and Virginia, and a ballot question deciding abortion rights in Ohio.
Lindell announced plans to "secure" the elections in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, Monday night. He said he planned to cover these elections, including reporting on "wireless monitoring devices."
Lindell asked his supporters to make donations to help his efforts saying that his team needs "resources now to get this to the finish line."
"Right now, we could use your help," he said, urging his followers to "put in a donation to help us out."
Newsweek reached out to MyPillow for comment via email.
The "wireless monitoring devices" touted by Lindell are designed to detect whether voting machines are connected to the internet and were sent, without charge, to election officials in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri ahead of Tuesday's elections, ABC News reported. Lindell told the network each device cost him $500 to manufacture, adding to his financial troubles.
But it remains unclear whether any officials will use the devices, as many have raised concerns about the legality of using unapproved election devices, according to ABC News.
Lindell previously defended himself against the backlash to his support of election fraud theories on his show, The Lindell Report, last month, describing the response as a "full-blown attack" on himself and MyPillow.
"I feel like we're in this major battle, which we are, but we're getting through it," Lindell said. "There's light at the end of these attacks, and we are going to win."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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About the writer
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. Andrew joined Newsweek in 2021 from The Boston Globe. He is a graduate of Emerson College. You can get in touch with Andrew by emailing [email protected]. Languages: English.
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues.... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here. | US Federal Elections |
THE FETTERMAN DILEMMA. John Fetterman was sworn in as a senator from Pennsylvania on Jan. 3. On Feb. 8, after 36 days in office, Fetterman was admitted to George Washington University Hospital in Washington after experiencing symptoms he and those around him feared might indicate a stroke. Tests showed he did not have a stroke, and Fetterman was released after two nights in the hospital. On Feb. 15, after 43 days in office, Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of depression. He is still there. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fetterman "could remain hospitalized for more than a month."
Fetterman's problems, of course, include the after-effects of a stroke he suffered on May 13, 2022, just days before Pennsylvania's Democratic senatorial primary. Fetterman stayed in the race, won his party's nomination, and moved on to the general election campaign. At the time, Fetterman, his family, and his political team downplayed the seriousness of his condition. Fetterman's wife Gisele called the stroke "a little hiccup" and told reporters that her husband would be "back on his feet in no time." In contemporary accounts, the event was often called a "minor stroke." Now, however, it is widely recognized to have been life-threatening.
Worse, there are fears that Fetterman, by focusing on his campaign rather than his recovery, permanently damaged his health. This is from the New York Times: "After the life-changing stroke, days before the Democratic primary last year, Mr. Fetterman briefly pared down his schedule to recover. But he continued to campaign in one of the most competitive and closely watched Senate races in the nation. Now, the possibility that he may have missed out on a crucial recovery period has become a source of pain and frustration for Mr. Fetterman and people close to him, who fear he may suffer long-term and potentially permanent repercussions. His schedule as a freshman senator has meant that he has continued to push himself in ways that people close to him worry are detrimental."
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All in all, it has not begun well. It seems obvious now that Fetterman was in no condition to begin a six-year term as a United States senator. Of course, that was obvious, at least to some people, before the election, too. But in 2022, one man's health was so caught up in politics that reasonable concerns were overwhelmed by the partisan fray. The result is a new senator, in the hospital, facing an uncertain future.
Obviously, Pennsylvania Democrats wanted to defeat the Republican Senate candidate, Dr. Mehmet Oz, particularly because Oz had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump. But Fetterman was not the only Democrat who could have run against Oz. Democratic then-Rep. Conor Lamb was in the primary race and lost by double digits to Fetterman. Lamb's loss was attributed in part to the fact that he was too centrist for the liberals who have taken over Democratic politics; one Pennsylvania Democrat told the New York Times, of Lamb, that "I look at him as another Joe Manchin," referring to the famously "centrist" Democratic senator from West Virginia.
In retrospect, though, it appears that Lamb could have won the seat, just as Fetterman did, because Democrats and their allies in the media were successful in turning much of the race into a referendum on Oz — and, by extension, on Trump. After all, Fetterman won after a debate in which it was clear to all that he had not fully recovered. Voters watched it and still voted for Fetterman. There were so many voters in Pennsylvania who were determined that Oz and Trump could never, ever, ever prevail that John Fetterman was likely not the only Democrat who could have taken the seat.
But Fetterman himself appeared to want it. It's necessary to say "appeared" because we never know what is in another person's heart of hearts. In any event, Fetterman and his party blew past the warning signs and went ahead with the campaign. And now, in office, he has hit a wall.
It's important to remember that it is possible to wish Fetterman the best, to wish him a complete recovery and a good life, and still believe it was a mistake for him to run for Senate and that Pennsylvania would be better served today by another senator. But the situation is what it is, the result of one man, and perhaps his family, and certainly his political party wanting something more than was wise, given the circumstances.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found. You can use this link to subscribe. | US Congress |
Trump Denied Immunity Against US Election Subversion Charges
Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute presidential immunity against criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled.
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute presidential immunity against criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge ruled, saying the office doesn’t come with a “lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday rejected Trump’s early efforts to get the federal indictment against him in Washington tossed out, including his contention that he could not be prosecuted over actions he took after the 2020 election while he was president.
Trump’s “four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens,” the judge wrote.
Chutkan also denied Trump’s separate motions to dismiss the case on the grounds that the charges are unconstitutional.
The judge’s decision is expected to be swiftly appealed by Trump’s legal team. His attorneys already have signaled that they would challenge a loss on the immunity issue, and believe that all of the criminal case proceedings should be paused until that issue is fully litigated, potentially up to the US Supreme Court.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that the former president would challenge Chutkan’s decision. He accused “radical Democrats” of trying to “destroy bedrock constitutional principles and set dangerous precedents that would cripple future presidential administrations and our country as a whole, in their desperate effort to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
A spokesperson for Special Counsel John “Jack” Smith’s office declined to comment.
A trial in the federal election obstruction case against Trump is set to begin March 4. Trump’s lawyers have pushed for longer timelines in the case and unsuccessfully argued to delay a trial until after the 2024 general election in November.
Chutkan’s decision came hours after the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected Trump’s effort to claim presidential immunity against civil claims seeking to hold him responsible for the violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
No Civil Immunity
The appeals court judges found that he wasn’t entitled to the immunity at this stage because the civil lawsuits brought by Democrats in Congress and law enforcement officers alleged his conduct was part of his political campaign, and not his presidential duties. The US Supreme Court has held in the past that presidents can’t be sued over official acts.
The DC Circuit panel said it wasn’t ruling on the question of presidential immunity against criminal prosecution, only certain civil claims. But the decision offers a road map for Smith’s office to defend Chutkan’s decision once Trump appeals it to the same court.
The court said he could potentially revive the civil immunity fight later if he presented evidence that he was, in fact, carrying out official presidential duties.
Chutkan wrote that while she was rejecting Trump’s claim of absolute immunity against prosecution, she wasn’t ruling yet on arguments he might make that the alleged criminal acts were part of his official duties and could be entitled to immunity.
In the 48-page opinion, Chutkan held that the “text, structure, and history” of the US Constitution doesn’t permanently shield former presidents against “investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.” The Constitution’s 18th century drafters wanted the US chief executive to be “wholly different from the unaccountable, almost omnipotent rulers of other nations at that time,” she wrote.
No Free Pass
“Whatever immunities a sitting President may enjoy, the United States has only one Chief Executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass,” she wrote.
The judge rebuffed other arguments Trump’s lawyers raised, including that a president could only be criminally prosecuted if they were first convicted in a US Senate impeachment trial or that the threat of future prosecution could interfere with a sitting president’s ability to carry out their duties.
“If the specter of subsequent prosecution encourages a sitting President to reconsider before deciding to act with criminal intent, that is a benefit, not a defect,” Chutkan wrote.
Chutkan has yet to rule on Trump’s motions to dismiss the indictment on claims that he’s a victim of “selective and vindictive prosecution” by the Justice Department under his political rival President Joe Biden and that the charges are otherwise invalid.
In Friday’s opinion, she rejected Trump’s contention that the indictment violated the First Amendment since prosecutors alleged his speech and political activities were used “as an instrument of a crime.” Trump’s acquittal in his 2021 Senate impeachment trial also didn’t create a double jeopardy problem, she wrote.
And the judge concluded that the indictment didn’t violate Trump’s due process rights because he would have been on “fair notice” that his conduct leading up to the Jan. 6 attack might be illegal.
“There is also a long history of prosecutions for interfering with the outcome of elections,” she wrote.
(Updated with additional information from the decision, background.)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | US Political Corruption |
An 11-year-old girl has been arrested and charged with a felony after falsely reporting that her friend had been kidnapped when she was inspired by an online challenge, police say.
Thinking it “would be funny,” according to the Volusia Sheriff’s Office in Florida -- located approximately 60 miles northeast of Orlando on the Atlantic coast -- the 11-year-old girl sent a text to a dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Communication Center at 9:45 a.m. informing them that her 14-year-old friend had been kidnapped “by an armed male driving a white van on South I-95 in Oak Hill” and that she was following in a blue Jeep.
The alert prompted multiple deputies from Volusia -- along with Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach and Port Orange police, as well as Volusia's aviation unit, Air One -- to search for the suspect vehicle but no van was found during the massive search.
“For the next hour and a half, the girl texted updates including a description of the male suspect and that he had a gun,” Volusia Sheriff’s Office said in a statement following the ordeal. “Ultimately, deputies were directed to a home in Port Orange by investigative means tracking the cell phone used to text 911.”
It was at 10:23 a.m. when deputies arrived at the home on Poppy Lane in Port Orange and contacted the 11-year-old girl’s father who informed the authorities that she was currently inside the home with her family.
“As deputies approached the girl, she was holding her cell phone, which was ringing as she walked out to meet the deputies. When answered, Volusia Sheriff’s Dispatch was on the line and deputies verified they were on scene,” police said.
The girl reportedly told deputies she got the idea to prank 911 through a challenge she watched online and thought it “would be funny,” according to police.
However, Sheriff Mike Chitwood isn’t amused.
“This kind of prank activity is dangerous – we’re going to investigate every incident but today it wasted valuable resources that might have helped someone else who legitimately needed our help,” he said. The 11-year-old has been charged with making a false police report concerning the use of a firearm in a violent manner -- a felony -- and misuse of 911 -- a misdemeanor.
She was taken to the Family Resource Center after the incident for processing before being transferred to the Volusia Regional Juvenile Detention Center, where she currently remains.
The sheriff took the opportunity to warn parents about just how important it is to closely monitor their children’s use of social media and announced that they will be hosting five 90-minute community forums through the end of August to help parents “protect their kids from Internet dangers.” | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Jeff Chiu/AP
toggle caption
A reparations rally outside City Hall in San Francisco this month, as supervisors take up a draft reparations proposal. The growing number of local actions has renewed hopes and questions about a national policy.
Jeff Chiu/AP
A reparations rally outside City Hall in San Francisco this month, as supervisors take up a draft reparations proposal. The growing number of local actions has renewed hopes and questions about a national policy.
Jeff Chiu/AP
Local reparations programs — in about a dozen cities and the state of California — have renewed hopes for an eventual national policy to compensate for slavery. But after decades of lobbying and three years of a national reckoning over race, Americans overall remain strongly opposed to the idea.
When Tatishe Nteta began polling about it several years ago he expected money would be the biggest issue. Or perhaps the workability of such a complex undertaking. It turns out those are the smallest concerns among the two-thirds of Americans who say they're against cash payments to the descendants of slaves.
"A plurality of Americans," Nteta says, "don't believe the descendants of slaves deserve reparations."
The political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, plans more research to get at exactly why people think that. The other most common reasons opponents cite is that it's "impossible to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery" and "African Americans are treated equally in society today."
Nteta, and also the Pew Research Center, find about three-quarters or more of white adults oppose reparations, and so do a majority of Latinos and Asian Americans. A large majority of Black Americans support them. There's also more support among younger people and a sharp political divide, with overwhelming opposition from Republicans and conservatives.
The racial wealth gap challenges a core American narrative
On a recent sunny day on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it was not hard to find reparations opponents willing to share their reasoning.
"You can't take what we know now and try to superimpose yourself onto 150 years ago," says Jeff Bernauer, visiting from Huntsville, Alabama. He calls racism a sin and says of course slavery was wrong. But to try and make amends at this point makes no sense.
"The generation that would be paying for it have nothing to do with what was done in the past," he says. "And then you're paying people that have nothing to do with it in the past."
Terry Keuhn of upstate New York agrees, and does not like the idea of a targeted program that would only help some people.
"We're all immigrants at some point, whether it was voluntary or forced," she says. "And nobody needs a handout anymore. Everybody, you know, pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps and works for a living and makes their way in this world."
That conviction — that hard work pays off — is a core narrative of the U.S., says Yale social psychologist Michael Kraus, and the notion of a persistent racial wealth gap clashes with it. He's surveyed people about this and thinks his findings help explain the broad opposition to reparations.
"A majority of our sample tends to think that we've made steady progress towards greater equality in wealth between families, so between black and white families," he says. "That is totally inconsistent with reality."
Most of those he surveyed thought that today, for every $100 dollars white families have, Black families have about $90. In fact, the racial wealth gap is exponentially larger. Given its magnitude, and the recent intense focus on racial justice around the country, Kraus calls this disconnect a kind of "collective willful ignorance."
Sure, he says, many people — especially white — may be isolated from those in different economic circumstances, and so find it difficult to fathom the enormous wealth gap. But he says it doesn't take much work to understand that Black people continue to be discriminated against in the job market, housing, banking, and other areas. He's come to believe that some — consciously or not — are avoiding information they may find uncomfortable.
The hope that an education campaign can change minds
Dorothy Brown is a convert on reparations. The Georgetown law professor dismissed the idea as impractical and unlikely, until she wrote a book about how even the U.S. tax system favors white families at the expense of Black ones. She decided the country's persistent wealth gap goes back to slavery, and so the only solution is reparations. Although she thinks they should be about systemic changes and not just cash.
"In 2 to 3 years that wealth would wind up in white hands, because our system for building wealth is not one designed for Black wealth," she says.
Brown is not daunted by the lack of public support. Her forthcoming book will make the case for reparations and she thinks many Americans are persuadable.
"Part of it is an education, it's a walk through history," she says. "It's a recognition that, okay, you may not have had anything to do with slavery, but ... your white grandfather got an FHA [Federal Housing Administration] insured loan. My grandfather couldn't because he was Black."
Brown sees a model in U.S. reparations for Japanese Americans who'd been interned during World War II.
Before the activist push for them, "fundamentally there was a lack of knowledge about what happened," says historian Alice Yang of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Then in 1980 and 1981, Congress held hearings in 20 cities around the country, and they included powerful testimony from people who'd been incarcerated with their families as children.
"Those hearings had a major impact on public perception of what happened during the war, how Japanese Americans were affected by it, and why redress might be appropriate," Yang says.
It helped convince some Japanese Americans who'd opposed the idea of reparations. But Yang says public opinion overall was not much of a factor. Japanese Americans at the time were only .5% of the population, mostly in California and Hawaii. The campaign for reparations was really about persuading members of Congress, and "if there had been a lot of public opinion opposing it, I think it might have affected [them] differently," Yang says.
"It's going to be ... decades"
Supporters of reparations for Black Americans consider a national program crucial. Explicitly racist federal policies were key in creating the wealth gap, and only the federal government could come anywhere close to compensating for harms that some have calculated at as much as $14 trillion. Brown sees local reparations as part of an education campaign for a national push, but others aren't sure whether they'll help or hurt.
Nteta, at U-Mass Amherst, believes some places are being mindful of the broad opposition to atoning for slavery. Evanston, Illinois, for example, is providing housing grants for residents who faced discrimination.
"It's not about slavery," Nteta says. "It's about the ways in which individuals who still are alive today were treated during a period of Jim Crow and institutionalized racism. So those people still exist."
If that or another program is deemed successful, he says, perhaps a national roadmap will emerge. But Yale researcher Kraus says they could also prompt backlash and reinforce misperceptions about the wealth gap.
"People could even use local reparations events as evidence that things are moving too fast and unnaturally towards equality, and so we need to stop and take a measured approach," he says.
Nteta already sees a general backlash. He says the debate over critical race theory and how to teach race in schools is "part and parcel of the debate about reparations," and yet another challenge to building support for them.
He says he wouldn't rule out an eventual policy, as young people more supportive of reparations replace older voters. But if it ever happens, "it's going to be, I think, decades."
In the Pew survey, even most supporters of reparations considered them unlikely to happen in their lifetime. | US Local Policies |
Washington —, the son of President Biden, has agreed to be interviewed by lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee in public as part of its into the president, his lawyer said in a letter to the panel Tuesday.
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's attorney, told Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, that the president's son will answer "any pertinent and relevant questions" lawmakers might have, but said his questioning must take place at a public committee hearing.
"A public proceeding would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements," Lowell said. "Your empty investigation has gone on too long wasting too many better-used resources. It should come to an end."
Lowell said Hunter Biden is willing to testify on Dec. 13 or on another date next month that can be arranged.
"We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public," he wrote. "We therefore propose opening the door. If, as you claim, your efforts are important and involve issues that Americans should know about, then let the light shine on these proceedings."
The move by Hunter Biden to answer questions from congressional investigators in public comes after House Republicans subpoenaed him to appear for a deposition earlier this month. The GOP leaders of the Oversight and Judiciary Committees, who are leading the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden, claimed Hunter Biden was "actively involved in the web connecting the Biden family to foreign money," and said he has "personal knowledge" of whether the president has been involved in his family members' business dealings.
Though House Republicans have claimed that the president profited off his son's overseas work, they have yet to uncover direct evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthythat he directed relevant House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden, and his successor, Speaker Mike Johnson, has continued to support the probe. Johnson said earlier this month that the next step is to question key witnesses under oath to "fill gaps in the record."
House Republicansof their impeachment inquiry in September, during which they sought to outline the basis for their probe of the president. But one of the GOP's witnesses, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said he did not believe the evidence collected by Republicans would support articles of impeachment.
for more features. | US Political Corruption |
Washington — Senate Democrats are moving ahead with a vote this week on, including billions in foreign aid, amid a growing dispute with Republicans over security funding for the U.S.-Mexico border.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York set up a key procedural vote on the supplemental spending package that includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan for Wednesday. The vote is expected to fail, absent a last-minute deal on border funding that has so far eluded lawmakers.
"Sometimes a failed cloture vote is just a failed cloture vote, and tomorrow we are going to fail to pass it," Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, said Tuesday, referring to the legislative maneuver to end debate on a bill. "And then people are going to have to sharpen their pencils and spend the next week negotiating a deal that keeps America's commitment not just to Ukraine, but to democracies around the world."
The fight over border funding
Schumer blamed Republicans for Congress' inability to approve the emergency funding, saying hard-liners are insisting on attaching controversial immigration policy changes to the supplemental bill. A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators have been meeting in recent weeks to try and reach a consensus, but those talks seemed to reach an impasse over the weekend.
"Republicans pulled the goalposts way back and proposed many items plucked directly from H.R. 2," Schumer said Tuesday, referring to a Republican-backed immigration bill that passed the House earlier this year with no Democratic support.
He said GOP negotiators proposed granting the executive branch the authority to detain asylum-seekers indefinitely and essentially shut down the country's immigration system, which are nonstarters with Democrats.
"If funding for Ukraine fails, it will not be a bipartisan failure," Schumer said. "It will be a failure solely caused by the Republican Party and the Republican leadership because it was a decision of that Republican leadership, pushed by the hard right, many of whom want Ukraine to fail, to make border [aid] a precondition to supporting Ukraine."
Republican Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have pushed back on the House GOP demand that the border component be the same as its immigration bill. The two, along with Bennet, have been part of the small bipartisan group of senators negotiating a border security package.
"I've heard a lot of people say H.R. 2 or nothing," Lankford said Tuesday. "And I've always smiled and said, House Republicans didn't get a single Democrat on H.R. 2, and they're asking us to get 20 on our side. OK, well, that's not realistic. I'm not about making a message at the end of this. We've got to actually make law at the end of this."
Lankford said he was confident lawmakers could reach a deal by the end of the year.
"It's just a matter of everybody staying at the table to be able to finish everything out," he said.
The White HouseCongress on Monday that the U.S. will run out of funding to assist Ukraine by the end of the year, which it said would "kneecap" the country in its war against Russia.
In response to the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana reiterated that Ukraine aid is "dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation's border security laws" and that he wants the administration to provide specifics about where the funding is going and the endgame in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy planned to address senators by video on Tuesday in a classified briefing but was ultimately unable to attend. Before the change of plans, Schumer noted it would have been the third time Zelenskyy had addressed senators since Russia invaded Ukraine.
"The last time he spoke to us, his message was direct and unsparing," Schumer said. "Without more aid from Congress, Ukraine does not have the means to defeat Vladimir Putin. Without more aid from Congress, Ukraine may fall. Democracy in Europe will be imperiled, and those who think Vladimir Putin will stop merely at Ukraine willfully ignore the clear and unmistakable warnings of history."
National security adviser Jake Sullivan and other administration officials briefed House lawmakers on Ukraine on Tuesday.
Alan He and Ellis Kim contributed reporting.
for more features. | US Congress |
Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) has apologized for underscoring criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris as he campaigns against her and President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.
"In the Atlantic, I shared kind words about Harris because that’s been my personal experience and I respect her," Phillips wrote Thursday on social media. "I shouldn’t have referenced other people’s opinions. I own that and apologize to her and everyone who’s been affected by similar circumstances."
i owe an apology.— Congressman Dean Phillips 🇺🇸 (@deanbphillips) November 23, 2023
in the atlantic, i shared kind words about @VP harris because that’s been my personal experience and i respect her.
i shouldn’t have referenced other people’s opinions. i own that and apologize to her and everyone who’s been affected by similar circumstances.
Phillips, who launched his long-shot bid against Biden and Harris last month, told the Atlantic unnamed people have complained to him that the vice president is "not well positioned" to be the president's No. 2. Biden turned 81 this week and is the country's oldest commander in chief.
“She is not well prepared, doesn’t have the right disposition and the right competencies to execute that office," he said of Harris, citing others.
Phillips added he had personally “not seen those deficiencies” in Harris and had enjoyed his interactions with her.
Phillips was pressed earlier this week on why he repeated scrutiny of Harris if that had not been his impression of her.
“I did not articulate that distinctly. That was asked of me. Others have said that to the reporter in question,” Phillips told CNN. “What I’ve said is when I’ve been around her, I’ve been impressed. She’s been kind. She’s been thoughtful and decent.”
“But what I’m trying to explain to Americans, whether it’s relative to the president’s age or the standing of Vice President Harris amongst Americans, if Democrats wish to beat Donald Trump … this is not about protecting people. It’s about protecting the principle of democracy,” he said.
Phillips's campaign is premised on the third-term congressman's argument that while Biden is a “good person,” polling suggests the country does not want him to be president again. He had reached out to others who could have been primary challengers but announced his own bid after they declined.
Phillips, a millionaire who was the former owner of Talenti, said he did not contact Harris as one of those possible challengers.
“No, you know, what I’m saying actually and what I’ve said directly to many and would actually say to her if she was right next to me — run," he continued on CNN. "The water [is] warm. We live in democracy.” | US Federal Elections |
- After the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first student-debt relief plan, he announced he'll be trying again.
- He started the process to use the Higher Education Act of 1965, but it will take longer this time.
- That's because that Act requires Biden to hold public hearings and solicit feedback on the proposal.
President Joe Biden isn't letting Friday's Supreme Court decision stop him from trying to get student-debt relief to millions of borrowers. But it could take some time.
On Friday, the high court struck down Biden's first plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers using the HEROES Act of 2003. That Act allows the Education Secretary to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, like COVID-19 — but the Supreme Court majority ruled Biden's usage of that act was an overreach of authority and cannot be implemented.
However, just hours after the Supreme Court handed down that decision, Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced they'll be trying again, using the Higher Education Act of 1965.
"That will allow Secretary Cardona, who is with me today, to compromise, waive, or release loans under certain circumstances," Biden said during Friday remarks. "This new path is legally sound. It's going to take longer, but, in my view, it's the best path that remains to providing for as many borrowers as possible with debt relief."
The reason this process will take longer is because the Higher Education Act must go through the negotiated rulemaking process, in which it could take months — at minimum — to hold public hearings on the law and solicit public comment.
"Like I said, we have to do these public hearings," Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said during a Friday press briefing. "There has to be a certain amount of preparation to do the public hearings. You have to intake the comments that you get from the public, and then you have to decide whether to change your proposal accordingly before you do the next public hearing."
"It's going to be months," he added. "I think, as I said, even the typical rulemaking process typically takes months. But we are aiming to do it as quickly as possible. And so, we will give you more updates as we hit each milestone in that process."
Ramamurti noted that the first public hearing on the Higher Education Act will be in July, and the administration does not yet know when borrowers can expect a significant update. The HEROES Act, in contrast, exempted the administration from going through public comment and the negotiated rulemaking process, which is why Biden chose to go that route initially to try to get relief to borrowers more quickly.
Even as borrowers are continuing to wait for broad student-debt relief, it won't happen before payments resume in October. To ease the transition to repayment, Biden on Friday also announced a 12-month "on-ramp" period from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024 to ensure that borrowers who miss monthly payments do not get reported to credit agencies. Still, interest will accrue during this time, so Cardona recommended borrowers begin making payments again if they're financially able.
While Republican lawmakers lauded the Supreme Court decision, Democratic lawmakers celebrated Biden's effort to try again under the Higher Education Act.
"President Biden is right to fight back on behalf of working people in need of student debt cancellation," Warren wrote on Twitter on Friday. "The law is on his side. The President has the clear legal authority to cancel student debt under the Higher Education Act. In a democracy, we have the final say." | SCOTUS |
AP
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This image provided by the Pennsylvania State Police shows Danelo Cavalcante early Sunday morning with what police called "a changed appearance." Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023 that Cavalcante was seen overnight near Phoenixville in northern Chester County.
AP
This image provided by the Pennsylvania State Police shows Danelo Cavalcante early Sunday morning with what police called "a changed appearance." Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement on Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023 that Cavalcante was seen overnight near Phoenixville in northern Chester County.
AP
A convicted killer who escaped from a Pennsylvania jail late last month has stolen a refrigerated van and changed his appearance as he continues to evade authorities in a sprawling manhunt that has lasted a week and a half.
Danelo Cavalcante broke out of the Chester County Prison near Philadelphia on the last day of August by "crab-walking" up two exterior brick walls before scaling razor wire and vaulting off a roof.
The getaway sparked a massive search across southeastern Pennsylvania, with schools canceling classes and police urging homeowners in the area to keep their doors and windows locked.
On Sunday morning, authorities said Cavalcante was spotted on a doorbell camera in the previous several hours near Phoenixville, about a 40-minute drive from where he had been seen before.
The formerly-bearded fugitive was now clean-shaven and was wearing a yellow or green hooded sweatshirt, a black baseball cap, his green prison pants and white shoes. Officials also said Cavalcante was driving a stolen white 2020 Ford Transit van with a refrigeration unit on top.
"Please remain inside and lock your vehicles and homes," the Upper Providence Township Police Department said in a post on its website. "Check your surveillance devices, and call 911 to report any sightings of Cavalcante."
Later in the morning, the Pennsylvania State Police said Cavalcante may have slipped away again.
"To those residents in the area of Phoenixville, you may no longer see a large law enforcement presence in your area," the agency said in a tweet. "Investigative leads have emerged that indicate Cavalcante is no longer in that area."
The manhunt is midway through its second week
Cavalcante, 34, was convicted of first-degree murder in August for the 2021 killing of Deborah Brandao, 6ABC reported.
Prosecutors say Cavalcante stabbed his then-girlfriend in front of her two young children to stop her from telling police that he was wanted for a separate homicide in his home country of Brazil, the outlet reported.
Just days after his conviction, Cavalcante made his daylight escape from the jail's yard. A prison tower guard on duty at the time was later fired.
Late last week, Cavalcante was spotted near Longwood Gardens, a popular outdoor attraction about an hour's drive from Philadelphia, but police failed to capture him.
Pennsylvania State Trooper Lt. Col. George Bivens said during a press conference on Thursday that authorities would continue to look for the fugitive as long as it takes.
"We've chased people for a lot longer than this and ultimately brought them to justice," Bivens said. "As I've said before, we're not going anywhere. We will eventually capture him. And when we do, he's going to prison."
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, an inmate named Igor Bolte escaped from the same jail in May using the same method as Cavalcante, but authorities captured Bolte a short time later.
The acting warden of the Chester County Prison, Howard Holland, said that though the jail was fully staffed when Cavalcante broke out, it took jail authorities more than an hour to notify local law enforcement. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
The legal landscape for former President Donald Trump has recently seen potential shifts, particularly in the context of his ‘election interference’ indictment case. During a lengthy appeals court session, judges appeared to question the necessity of a gag order that had been imposed on Trump by a lower court.
According to a report by the Washington Post on November 21, 2023, the appeals court, consisting of a three-judge panel, spent two and a half hours considering arguments from Trump’s legal team and federal prosecutors. The focus was on a gag order issued by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, which barred Trump from making inflammatory remarks about prosecutors, witnesses, and court staff involved in his case.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office argued that maintaining the gag order is essential to prevent intimidation and threats in the case, which accuses Trump of scheming to illegally overturn the 2020 election results. Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, on the other hand, advocated for the complete revocation of this order.
The appeals court’s pending decision will be crucial in setting the boundaries for Trump’s public commentary as the trial date nears. This decision becomes particularly significant given Trump’s status as both a criminal defendant and a potential Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
The judicial panel, comprising Judges Brad Garcia, Cornelia Pillard, and Patricia Millett, will be instrumental in determining the level of restrictions on Trump’s speech. It’s notable that Judge Garcia was appointed by President Biden, while Judges Pillard and Millett were appointed by former President Barack Obama.
The issue of the gag order initially emerged when Judge Chutkan imposed it on October 17. It was temporarily lifted during a previous appeal by Trump but was reinstated on October 29. Throughout the proceedings, Trump has consistently denied the allegations against him, framing the legal actions as politically motivated interference.
A particularly intriguing moment in the recent court session occurred when Special Counsel Jack Smith referred to potential witnesses as “political witnesses,” a comment that sparked further speculation about the nature of the witnesses in the case.
In a related development, Trump scored a legal victory when an appeals court overturned another gag order. This order, issued by Judge Arthur F. Engoron in a fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, was deemed to violate Trump’s First Amendment rights by Judge David Friedman. The initial order, issued on October 3, aimed to restrict Trump’s public statements about his staff, following his comments on social media and to the press that questioned the trial’s fairness.
Concerns about the political affiliations of Alison Greenfield, Engoron’s main law clerk, added complexity to the case. Trump’s allegations of a “witch hunt” and demands for the case’s dismissal have only intensified the debate surrounding these legal proceedings. | US Circuit and Appeals Courts |
PLAINFIELD, Ill. (WLS) -- A man stabbed a child to death and critically injured a woman in the southern suburbs on Saturday morning because they are Muslim, the Will County Sheriff's Office said on Sunday.
It happened just before 11:40 a.m. Saturday in Plainfield. A 32-year-old woman called 911, saying her landlord had attacked her with a knife. The caller said she ran to the bathroom and tried to fight the attacker off.
Sheriff's deputies were sent to the home, which is located in the 16200 block of South Lincoln Highway near Lily Cache Road. Chopper 7 was over the scene.
When Will County Sheriff's Office deputies and Plainfield Police Department officers arrived, they found the 71-year-old suspect, Joseph M. Czuba, sitting upright on the ground, near the home's driveway. He had a cut on his forehead, and was later transported to a local hospital.
Deputies then found two victims, a 32-year-old woman and an 6-year-old boy, inside a bedroom. They each had suffered several dozen stab wounds to their chest, torso and arms.
The child, stabbed 26 times, was transported in critical condition to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, the sheriff's office said. The woman was hospitalized in serious condition, and is expected to survive.
Police found a knife on the scene, and Czuba was treated and released from a local hospital before being transported to the Will County Sheriff's Office Public Safety Complex for questioning.
Czuba has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two hate crime counts and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Czuba did not make any statements to detectives about his involvement in the attack, but detectives determined that he targeted the victims due to their Muslim identities and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and Israel.
Trinity Jasnicka said she was shocked to see the scene right by her house, which she has lived in for 25 years.
"I've never heard or seen something this tragic happen," Jasnicka said. "We were just coming down the road, saw the tape and just speechless for a second until we heard what happened. It's tragic, for sure."
There is no current threat to the public, the sheriff's office said.
The video in the player above is from a previous report. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
One hundred and twenty-eight House Republicans and nearly all Republican senators on Friday filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court opposing the Biden administration's federal student debt cancellation plan, which has been halted as tens of millions of Americans await the justices' ruling on its legality.
While White House officials have been adamant that the president is within his authority to wipe out hundreds of billions in government-backed loans to provide "breathing room to tens of millions of working families," Republicans challenging it take the opposite view.
The forgiveness plan that could relieve up to $20,000 for eligible loan recipients is an unconstitutional breach of the separation of powers and a violation of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), according to the House GOP brief.
"The Biden administration's student loan bailout is a political gambit engineered by special interest groups; abusing the HEROES Act for such a ploy is shameful," House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said in a statement.
The House GOP brief included 25 members on Foxx's committee and roughly 100 other lawmakers. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did not sign it, though Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan did.
Separately, 43 Republican senators signed their own brief in support of the challenge to the loan forgiveness program. Led by Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn, they also call the president's plan unlawful and claim it exceeds his office.
The White House has pushed back.
"While opponents of our plan are siding with special interests and trying every which way to keep millions of middle class Americans in debt, the President and his Administration are fighting to lawfully give middle-class families some breathing room as they recover from the pandemic and prepare to resume loan payments in January," spokesman Abdullah Hasan said in October.
However, the House Republicans say they believe Biden is exploiting the language of the HEROES Act, which the administration argues vests the education secretary with expansive authority to alleviate financial hardship for federal student loan recipients as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Indeed, the entire purpose of the HEROES Act is to authorize the Secretary to grant student-loan-related relief to at-risk borrowers because of a national emergency -- precisely what the Secretary did here," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a Supreme Court filing defending the proposed debt cancellation.
After legal challenges last year saw the forgiveness program halted by lower courts, the Supreme Court announced in December that it will hear oral arguments on the issue at the end of February.
A decision on the program is then expected by June.
The moratorium on loan repayments, which was first put in place under President Donald Trump earlier in the pandemic, is now set to expire 60 days after the decision or 60 days after June 30 -- whichever date comes first.
A vocal opponent of Biden's plan, Foxx also accused the administration of "bypassing Congress" to implement loan forgiveness.
"Congress is the only body with the authority to enact sweeping and fundamental changes of this nature, and it is ludicrous for President Biden to assume he can simply bypass the will of the American people," she said in her statement.
Foxx told ABC News in an interview last month that she believes it is an "injustice" for taxpayers to fund the administration's "scheme." The plan would cost $400 billion, according to an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and its nearly half-a-trillion-dollar price tag worries Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.
Despite the White House saying the cancellation would give needed economic relief, Duncan said it would be sending the U.S. further into a "debt spiral."
"The Court should invalidate the Secretary of Education's sweeping student loan forgiveness program since it trespasses on Congressional authority and violates the separation of powers," he said.
The U.S. Education Department has said the president's decision to cancel up to $10,000 for some loan recipients -- those who made less than $125,000 on their 2020 or 2021 taxes or $250,000 filing jointly -- or $20,000 for low-income recipients who received Pell grants could impact roughly 43 million Americans who owe $1.6 trillion in student loans.
That was particularly important in light of how COVID-19 upended the economy, according to the White House.
"This is why we took this action -- to make sure that tens of millions of Americans are able to deal with a time that was very difficult, especially in the last couple of years," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC News' Karen Travers last week. "That's been the important priority of the president: to make sure folks … who felt the pinch if you will, who felt the hurt the most these past couple of years due to what COVID did to the economy, got a little extra help."
After the cancellation program launched last year, 26 million people signed up online before it was halted by the courts.
Of that group, 16 million were approved before the department's website stopped accepting applications to let the legal process play out. However, no loan forgiveness has been discharged.
Last month, over a dozen advocacy groups like the NAACP filed briefs in support of the president's plan.
"Student loan borrowers from all walks of life suffered profound financial harms during the pandemic and their continued recovery and successful repayment hinges on the Biden Administration's student debt relief plan," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in response to the coalition of groups joining in support of the plan. "We will continue to defend our legal authority to provide the debt relief working and middle-class families clearly need and deserve." | SCOTUS |
Republican 2nd District Congressional candidate Celeste Maloy’s campaign said in a Tuesday morning news release that her opponents in the September primary election, Becky Edwards and Bruce Hough, have agreed to participate in 10 debates ahead of the primary. Edwards’ campaign says that’s not true.
The news release and social media posts from Maloy’s campaign assert the three candidates vying for the Republican nomination in the special election to replace Rep. Chris Stewart “have agreed to a robust debate schedule” of ten debates over 12 days. The first forum is scheduled for Friday night in Farmington and will conclude with a televised debate in Salt Lake County.
A spokesperson from Edwards’ campaign flatly denied they had agreed to any of the debates on the schedule on Tuesday.
It’s unclear how the mix-up happened.
A representative from Maloy’s campaign told The Salt Lake Tribune that Maloy spoke with Edwards at an event in St. George over the weekend, where she agreed to join her on the debate stage. Edwards’ campaign confirmed the conversation with Maloy but said Edwards did not agree to participate.
“Becky and Celeste did bump into each other, but there was no confirmation that she would debate,” Edwards spokesperson Chelsea Robarge Fife told The Tribune in a telephone conversation Tuesday afternoon.
Maloy’s campaign did not respond to questions about their claim. The debates will be put on by Maloy’s campaign and not an independent organization.
Maloy advanced to the September primary ballot after winning the delegate vote at the special GOP convention in June. Edwards and Hough earned their place in the primary by submitting signatures.
Hough’s campaign manager, Russ Walker, said Hough agreed to all ten debates with Maloy after they were able to work out details on the moderators and format. Friday’s event in Farmington is set to be moderated by Davis County GOP Chair Yemi Arunsi and former chair Daniella Harding. Candidates will also field questions from the audience.
“We look forward to again meeting with voters throughout the entire district and taking unscripted questions directly from them,” Walker said.
Walker added Hough is hopeful that Edwards will agree to some of the scheduled debates before ballots go out to voters later this month.
“I’m not sure what Becky is afraid of and why she refuses to go out and meet with voters in Southern Utah,” Walker said. | US Congress |
President Joe Biden said Friday that he was not fully confident that the current U.S. Supreme Court, which he described as extreme, could be relied on to uphold the rule of law.
When asked the question directly, Biden paused for a few seconds. Then he sighed and said, “I worry.”
“Because,” he said, “I know that if the other team, the MAGA Republicans, win, they don’t want to uphold the rule of law.”
But he said, “I do think at the end of the day, this court, which has been one of the most extreme courts, I still think in the basic fundamentals of rule of law, that they would sustain the rule of law.”
Still, Biden said the court itself should recognize it needs ethics rules after stories by ProPublica revealed that billionaires had given undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices and that Justice Clarence Thomas has made appearances at events for donors to the Koch political network. The code of conduct that applies to other federal judges doesn’t apply to the Supreme Court. “The idea that the Constitution would in any way prohibit or not encourage the court to have basic rules of ethics that are just on their face reasonable,” Biden said, “is just not the case.”
The discussion was part of a rare formal interview on a topic the president has laid out as a priority: How America’s democracy is under siege. Seated in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Friday afternoon, Biden seemed relaxed and confident, batting back a question about why he thinks he’s the only Democrat who can protect democracy next year, especially given voter concerns with his age: “I’m not the only Democrat that can protect it. I just happen to be the Democrat who I think is best positioned to see to it that the guy I was worried about taking on democracy is not president.”
Biden cast the threat to democracy posed by Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy as a resistance movement animated by fear of change. “I think Trump has concluded that he has to win,” Biden said, noting the rising vitriol in the embattled former president’s rhetoric. “And they’ll pull out all the stops.”
Biden linked the attempt by House Republicans to bring Washington to “a screeching halt” through a government shutdown to Trump’s effort to regain the presidency. He warned against the desire of “MAGA Republicans” — which he called a minority of the GOP, much less the nation as a whole — to weaken institutions such as the federal civil service to shift power over the U.S. government toward the president alone. Trump has promised his supporters to “be your retribution” in a second term.
The drama over a government shutdown resulted from the “terrible bargain” Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with extremist colleagues to secure his job, Biden said. “He’s willing to do things that he, I think, he knows are inconsistent with constitutional processes.” He added: “There is a group of MAGA Republicans who genuinely want to have a fundamental change in the way that the system works. And that’s what worries me the most.”
Biden faulted his Democratic Party for failing at some points to respond effectively to one of the wellsprings of the anti-democratic threat: the anxieties of Americans, most conspicuously blue-collar white men, unsettled by economic, cultural and demographic change.
What’s needed isn’t so much economic benefits as “treating them with respect,” said Biden, who has emphasized his middle-class Scranton, Pennsylvania, upbringing throughout his political career. “The fact is, we’re going to be very shortly a minority-white-European country. Sometimes my colleagues don’t speak enough to make it clear that that is not going to change how we operate.”
Biden expressed confidence that the majority of the Republican Party and the nation itself would ultimately safeguard the American experiment. But he exhorted them to “speak up” in opposition to the increasingly menacing rhetoric Trump has deployed in response to his legal peril.
“[Do] not legitimize it,” he said. He added, in what seemed a reference to the vitriol aimed at jurors and potential jurors in trials for the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump-related cases, “I never thought I’d see a time when someone was worried about being on a jury because there may be physical violence against them if they voted the wrong way.”
He encouraged Americans concerned about democracy to be “engaging” more with family, friends and acquaintances who have embraced extremism. Even more urgent, he added, is voting in next year’s presidential election. “Get in a two-way conversation,” he said. “I really do believe that the vast majority of the American people are decent, honorable, straightforward. … We have to, though, understand what the danger is if they don’t participate.”
ProPublica also asked Biden whether his former Senate colleague Joe Lieberman is upholding democracy by working with an organization called No Labels to pursue a potential third-party candidacy. “Well, he has a democratic right to do it. There’s no reason not to do that. Now, it’s going to help the other guy. And he knows [that]. … That’s a political decision he’s making that I obviously think is a mistake. But he has a right to do that.”
Biden was asked whether Fox News and other outlets that spread falsehoods about the 2020 election drive the threat that he’s concerned about or simply reflect sentiment that already exists. Both, Biden said: “Look, there are no editors any more. That’s one of the big problems.” Without providing detail, he suggested that reporters on outlets such as Fox are just doing what they’re told.
In response to a question about whether the decision by Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), to lower guardrails against misinformation contributes to the problem, Biden said, “Yeah, it does.” Biden noted that the invention of the printing press had effects that are still felt today. He suggested something similar was happening with the internet. “Where do people get their news?” he continued. “They go on the internet. They go online … and you have no notion whether it’s true or not.” | SCOTUS |
When FBI agents arrived at James Nott’s Kentucky apartment with a search warrant on Tuesday, they asked if anyone else was home.
“Only my dead friends,” Nott replied.
That’s according to the FBI, who in a criminal complaint detailed 40 human skulls and other remains they found decorating Nott’s home, tying him to a ring of people allegedly buying and selling human body parts illegally – including a Harvard Medical School morgue manager, who is accused of stealing cadaver parts.
The skulls were strewn around Nott’s house; one had a headscarf wrapped around it and another was found on the mattress where he slept, according to the complaint. The agents also found spinal cords, femurs, hip bones and a Harvard Medical School bag, according to the affidavit submitted by the FBI.
Nott has not been charged with crimes connected with the body parts. But he is facing a federal charge of possession of a firearm by a prohibited person due to his status as a convicted felon.
In 2011, Nott pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device, after being found with a detonation cord, igniting devices, timed fuses and other materials that could be used to assemble “a destructive device,” the complaint states.
CNN has reached out to Aaron Dyke, Nott’s public defender, for comment but has not heard back.
It all started last summer, when the police in East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania, received a tip about possible human remains located at the home of a man named Jeremy Pauley, according to the complaint. Officers searched his home in Enola, Pennsylvania, and found organs and skin, among other human remains, the FBI said.
During the FBI investigation, Pauley told agents about a network of people buying and selling stolen human body parts. The investigation revealed one of those people was Cedric Lodge, who worked in a Harvard Medical School morgue, where he allegedly stole cadaver body parts to sell online, the FBI said.
Lodge was fired in May and is facing federal charges for stealing, selling and shipping the body parts, according to an indictment filed last month in US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Through Facebook messages, officials connected Nott to Pauley and the ring of people allegedly engaged in the illegal trade of body parts, according to the criminal complaint.
Nott used a Facebook account with the username “William Burke,” where he posted human remains for sale as recently as June, and even sent Pauley images of skulls for sale last summer, according to the complaint. “William Burke was a serial killer active in Edinburgh between 1827 and 1828 along with his partner, William Hare. Burke and Hare sold their victims’ bodies to Dr. Robert Knox, an influential lecturer in the Anatomy Department at the University of Edinburgh,” the affidavit notes.
“I don’t mind paying up a little for shop stock. Makes things look good. How much total for the couple and the last video you sent plus the spines?” Pauley wrote to Nott in one exchange, according to the complaint.
Pauley was charged last month with violations related to the interstate transport of stolen goods and conspiracy. Pauley will plead guilty to the charges, according to CNN affiliate WGAL. CNN has reached out to Pauley’s attorney for comment, but has not heard back.
Officials say in their search of Nott’s Mount Washington, Kentucky home, they also found multiple weapons, including an AK-47 rifle.
“It’s a shock. You just never know who your neighbor is anymore,” Caroline Branum, a neighbor who lives across the street from Nott, told CNN affiliate WLKY.
Nott is being held without bail, and his arraignment is set for August 4.
CNN’s Jessica Xing and Laura Ly contributed to this report. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Key events19m agoMcCarthy's first day on House speaker job poised to be rocky oneShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureMcCarthy's first day on House speaker job poised to be rocky oneGood morning, US politics blog readers, and welcome to Kevin McCarthy’s first day on the job as speaker of the House. The California Republican was finally elected to the post after 15 rounds of balloting that ended in the wee hours of Saturday morning, and today he’ll take the reins of Congress’s lower chamber. On the agenda is passage of the customary rules package that determines how the House will operate this Congress, but like just about everything that has happened since last week, there’s no certainty it will pass – which could plunge the chamber into renewed paralysis. Stay tuned to this blog for the latest on the vote as it happens.That’s not all that’s going on today: Joe Biden is making the first visit of a US president to Mexico since 2014, where he’ll discuss topics ranging from trade to climate change to migration with president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. They’ll be joined later in the day by prime minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. McCarthy and other top Republicans have yet to speak out against yesterday’s January 6-esque assault on Brazil’s government offices by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries has condemned the attack. | US Congress |
For the first time in United States history, a Speaker of the House of Representatives has been removed from his post. And while you can’t blame Democrats for the blow that right-wing bomb throwers landed on Kevin McCarthy, what you can say is that they failed to do the right thing on behalf of the American people.
Let me explain. It would be understandable if Democrats decided to remain neutral on Tuesday (by voting “present”), reasoning that it is a Republican civil war. But they didn’t. Instead, by voting “no” on the procedural motion to table Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion—and then voting “yes” on his Motion to Vacate the Office of Speaker—Democrats effectively voted for Gaetz. And a vote for Gaetz is a vote for chaos.
This same dynamic is reflected in the broader GOP civil war between responsible governance and dysfunction. And what’s worse is that sanity is losing. That’s the case in the GOP presidential primary race, where Donald Trump is running away with the nomination. And McCarthy’s ouster is yet another example from the legislative front. Instead of siding with sanity, Democrats have decided to side with Gaetz. It’s not a good look.
Look, I understand why Dems don’t like Kevin McCarthy. I really do. When Trump was on the ropes after Jan. 6, it was McCarthy who went to Mar-a-Lago and helped resuscitate him. Additionally, in order to become speaker in January, McCarthy agreed to a rules change that would allow just one member to bring a motion to vacate. This is to say, he knew what this was.
More recently, after Democrats went out of their way to help McCarthy prevent a government shutdown, he thanked them by going on CBS News’ Face The Nation and blaming them.
And once Gaetz started making noise about removing him, McCarthy refused to make any concessions to earn the support of Dems.
Oh yeah, did I mention that McCarthy just launched an impeachment probe aimed at Joe Biden?
This is all to say that McCarthy didn’t deserve (or even ask) for Democrats to bail him out. Just as McCarthy thought negotiating with Democrats was beneath him, Democrats prioritized partisanship and “tradition” over doing the right thing.
But as Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher—who concedes “there’s plenty to dislike” about Kevin McCarthy—writes, the now-deposed speaker “has proven willing to take political risks so we keep the government open and pay our debt obligations. It may be the lowest bar. But he clears it. And Democrats need him to clear it.”
Most Democrats presumably want to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion. If so, it’s hard to imagine a Gaetz-backed speaker helping fund Ukraine’s war efforts to the degree McCarthy has.
Although Dems aren’t to blame for this chaos, they have a moral obligation to strive for the best outcome for America, and—based on the likely alternatives—Speaker McCarthy is probably as good as it gets.
Yes, this would mean they would have to go the extra mile and be the adults in a fraught situation. But isn’t it possible that Democrats would be rewarded for owning the adult brand?
Again, doing the right thing wouldn't have necessitated voting for McCarthy. Just skipping the vote or voting “present” would have been enough to lower the threshold and allow McCarthy to survive.
By refusing to do that (and therefore voting for Gaetz), Democrats appear to be putting politics before America’s best interests. Maybe they would prefer that Republicans air their dirty laundry in public to highlight the GOP’s dysfunction and inability to govern.
While it’s still possible that allowing this ugly process to play out could result in something positive for Democrats and America, it could also turn out to be disastrous. We have seen this movie before.
As the Washington Free Beacon editorialized on Tuesday, “Democrats cheered on Donald Trump as he crushed his GOP opponents, confident that he was the weakest general election candidate they could face. Since then, they have elevated a procession of unserious Republican candidates with millions of dollars in advertising, from Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania to Darren Bailey in Illinois and John Gibbs in Michigan.”
Again, elevating the craziest Republican can sometimes work for Democrats, but it is a dangerous strategy when the stakes are this high.
There was a “W” waiting for the Dems—a “hanging curveball,” as they say. Had they done the right thing on Tuesday, then going forward, they would have been positioned to basically say, “We’re above culture war bullshit, and would not abide a coup by Matt Gaetz. Nobody asked us to rescue McCarthy, but we did. That’s what responsible leadership does. Remember that the next time the GOP says we’re the problem.” Now they can’t.
Democrats didn’t start this fire, but it sure as hell feels like they are fanning the flames instead of smothering it. Doesn’t America deserve at least one adult party? | US Congress |
Law enforcement officers were going door-to-door Sunday searching for clues about a gunman who fled after killing five people in a rural Texas town after his neighbors asked him to stop firing off rounds in his yard.
The alleged shooter, Francisco Oropesa, 38, was considered armed and dangerous after fleeing the area Friday, likely on foot, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said late Saturday. He said authorities had widened the search to 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the scene of the shooting.
Investigators found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of forest, but tracking dogs lost the scent, Capers said. Authorities were able to identify Oropesa by an identity card issued by Mexican authorities to citizens who reside outside the country, as well as doorbell camera footage. He said police have also interviewed the suspect's wife.
Police recovered the AR-15-style rifle that Oropesa allegedly used in the shootings, but authorities were not sure if he was carrying another weapon, the sheriff said. There were other weapons in the suspect's home, he said.
"He could be anywhere now," Capers said.
The attack happened near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say neighbors often unwind by firing off guns.
It was a much quieter scene Sunday. Police crime scene tape had been removed from around the victims' home. Some people stopped by to leave flowers.
An FBI agent, several Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and other officers could be seen walking around the neighborhood, going door-to-door and trying to speak with neighbors. The agent and officers declined to comment about what they were doing.
As the troopers were speaking to residents at one house, a red truck pulling a travel trailer drove through the neighborhood. One trooper stopped the truck and asked the driver, "Mind if I take a look inside the truck?"
The driver agreed and allowed the trooper to go inside the vehicle. After inspecting the trailer, the trooper let the driver continue on his way.
Veronica Pineda, 34, who lives across the street from the suspect's home, said authorities asked if they could search her property to see if he might be hiding there.
"That's good for them to do that," said the mother of five, adding that she remained fearful because the gunman hasn't yet been captured.
"It is kind of scary. You never know where he can be. I don't think he will be here anymore," she said.
She said she didn't know Oropesa well but occasionally saw him, his wife and son ride their horses on the street and believes the family have lived there five or six years. Pineda said neighbors have called authorities in the past to complain about the firing of weapons.
The victims of Friday's shooting were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and all were believed to be from Honduras, Capers said. All were shot "from the neck up," he said. A GoFundMe page was set up to repatriate the bodies of two victims, a mother and son, to their native country.
Enrique Reina, Honduras' secretary of foreign affairs and international cooperation, said on Twitter that the Honduran Consulate in Houston was contacting the families in connection with the repatriation of remains as well as U.S. authorities to keep apprised of the investigation.
The suspect's last name was originally given as Oropeza by authorities, but the FBI in Houston said in a Tweet on Sunday that it was now referring to him as Oropesa to "better reflect his identity in law enforcement systems." The FBI said the case "remains a fluid investigation."
The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
A total of three children found covered in blood in the home were taken to a hospital but found to be uninjured, Capers said.
FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe those at the home were members of a single family. The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.
The confrontation came after the neighbors walked up to a fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. He said the suspect responded by telling them that it was his property. Doorbell video captured him walking up to the front door with a rifle.
The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on 1-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victims' home, while in the front yard of Oropesa's house a dog and chickens wandered about.
Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn't think anything of it.
"It's a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work," Arevalo said. "They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there." | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be falling out with the MAGAverse. On Thursday, Donald Trump Jr. made the case that the Democratic scion is caught up in a conspiracy designed to undermine his father. “It legitimately always felt like it was a Democrat plant to hurt the Trump thing,” he said of Kennedy at the Trump campaign’s Iowa headquarters. “He wouldn’t be there if the Democrats didn’t want him,” the Trump son added, according to NBC News.
Members of Trumpworld previously cheered on Kennedy’s campaign with gusto: They hoped that the presidential hopeful, an anti-vaxxer who has embraced a number of conservative policy planks, would badger Joe Biden and ultimately weaken his political standing in the general election. But that calculus appears to have changed a little over two weeks ago, when Kennedy dropped out of the Democratic primary in favor of a third-party bid.
While Kennedy could still hurt Biden in a general election, some polling suggests that Trump is at higher risk of losing votes. A Quinnipiac University survey taken in September found that Kennedy has much higher favorability marks among Republicans (48%) than Democrats (14%).
Trump Jr., for what it’s worth, has argued that the opposite is true. “He should be much more of a threat to Joe Biden than to us,” he said of Kennedy. Still, he urged conservatives against viewing the independent hopeful as an ally. “Once you actually look at his voting record, you’re like, no, he’s just a liberal that is anti-vax,” Trump Jr. continued. “Being anti-vax, I don’t think that’s enough.” (The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
That Trump Jr. would be so concerned about vaccines is noteworthy, given that vaccine skepticism is perhaps the one issue in which Kennedy could outflank Trump from the right. Kennedy has spent years as a face of the anti-vax movement. The former president, meanwhile, has been somewhat ambivalent toward anti-vaxxers, and—likely much to their displeasure—even sought to take credit for the development of the COVID-19 vaccines. His vulnerability on the issue has already provided ammunition for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and Trump’s main rival in the GOP primary: “You have another wrinkle now with RFK Jr. as a third party,” DeSantis said earlier this month. “RFK Jr. will be a vessel for anti-lockdown and anti-Fauci voters if Trump is the nominee. He would hurt Trump.”
Trump Jr.’s comments represent a significant departure from his father’s view on Kennedy a few months ago. “He’s a very smart guy,” Trump said in July, before musing about how the then Democratic candidate might hamper Biden’s reelection campaign. “He’s hit a little bit of a nerve. And a lot of Democrats I know want to vote for him.” | US Federal Elections |
As Republicans in the House of Representatives debate who should lead the lower chamber, it's notable that the House speaker — who is second in line for the presidency — doesn't have to be a member of Congress.
The House has never been led by a non-member in its 234 years of existence, according to the Congressional Research Service, and experts say a non-member speaker is still unlikely. But it is possible.
The House is currently without a speaker afterfrom the position in a vote on Tuesday, the first time in history a speaker has been removed via a no-confidence vote. , a close ally of McCarthy's, has been named speaker pro tempore, while have both announced they are running to be the next speaker.
The Constitution has very few requirements to be House speaker. The person must be nominated by a member of the House, then chosen by a majority of the full membership of the House. For a House with 435 members, that's 218 votes, although there are two vacancies right now.
"The House of Representatives shall chuse their speaker and other officers," the Constitution reads.
Could Trump actually become speaker of the House?
The far-right GOP Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas announced this week that he would nominate Trump to be speaker. The former president hasn't ruled out the idea, and Trump received some placatory nominations in the speaker's election in January.
But the Republican conference's rules for the 118th Congress suggest Trump could be ineligible to serve as speaker. At the beginning of the year, House Republicans adopted a set of rules including Rule 26, which says a member of leadership who has been indicted for a felony that could carry a sentence of two or more years in prison "shall" vacate their position. Trump faces 91 felony charges.
"A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed," the Republican conference rules for the 118th Congress state.
But internally adopted rules can be changed, or ignored, and the Republican conference could do so if they choose.
"A lot of people have been calling me about speaker," Trump said Wednesday morning outside a New York City courthouse for the New York attorney general'sagainst him. "All I can say is we will do whatever is best for the country and other Republican Party and people."
In the summer of 2021, Democratic Rep. Brendon Boyle introduced a bill that would have allowed only House members to serve as speaker. At the time, Trump called the idea that he might try to become speaker "so interesting." The bill did not become law.
What names have been floated to be the new House speaker?
Although more House Republicans are likely to jump into the race to replace McCarthy, House Majority Whipare the ones who have formally announced their candidacies.
For now, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Patrick McHenry is serving as speaker pro tempore, a temporary position with limited power that does not appear to allow legislation to pass the lower chamber.
"The House is largely paralyzed at this point," Republican Rep. Garrett Graves told CBS News on Wednesday.
for more features. | US Congress |
Election Day shortages of the paper needed to run voting machinery caused significant problems in a northeastern Pennsylvania county in November, but the extent of the problem or what caused it are still unclear, witnesses told a congressional committee Tuesday.
The three-hour hearing of the U.S. House Administration Committee into events in Luzerne County on Nov. 8 brought outrage from members of both parties about the problems that contributed to a delay in reporting results from the country's largest swing state.
The fact-finding, billed by the Republican majority as a look into "government voter suppression" in Luzerne, included anecdotal reports of problems voting in a county where a judge agreed to order polls to remain open for two extra hours, until 10 p.m., to accommodate those who may have been unable to cast ballots earlier in the day.
"This is catastrophic, in my view," said U.S. Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the committee's ranking Democrat. "This is a complete breakdown."
Elections officials "rushed to stores" in an effort to get paper for "voter-created emergency ballots," said committee Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, calling it "unbelievable in American elections today."
"To date, no official action has been taken in Luzerne County," Steil said. "No report from the district attorney. No report from the secretary of state. No report from the Luzerne County Board of Elections. There must be accountability."
The hearing did not include the Luzerne County officials who oversee and run elections, as they apparently received legal advice not to participate while Luzerne District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce investigates what happened.
The Pennsylvania Department of State also declined to testify, telling Steil in a March 22 letter that the statewide elections agency did not want to interfere in or compromise the results of Sanguedolce's investigation.
"Though the Department offers guidance and assistance to counties on election administration issues, the Department of State, with very few exceptions, unrelated to the issues here, has limited authority under Pennsylvania's Election Code to dictate how counties run their elections," wrote Jonathan Marks, Pennsylvania's deputy secretary for elections and commissions.
Sanguedolce, who watched the hearing, declined to comment afterward on his investigation or when he might disclose its findings. Sanguedolce said he "wouldn't narrow it to a criminal investigation," noting his office has jurisdiction to look into anything involving voter irregularity.
"If everyone in that hearing operates from the assumption that the facts set forward are true, then everyone should be concerned," Sanguedolce said. "But I'm not sure you should assume the facts are true."
The hearing included claims that paper shortages were widespread, questions about the procedures used to cast emergency or provisional ballots, and reports some voters were unable to cast ballots at all. There was also testimony about employee turnover problems within Luzerne's elections office.
"We don't have the answers that we need," said Jim Bognet, a Republican who lost by less than three percentage points in a challenge to Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright in November. "That's why we're so happy you guys are looking into it."
Luzerne, formerly a reliable Democratic majority county, has become much more Republican in recent years, although Democrat Josh Shapiro won the county by barely one percentage point in the November governor's race. In recent presidential contests, Donald Trump easily beat Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 in Luzerne. | US Federal Elections |
Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has found a new cause—changing the election law she blames for her 2022 congressional campaign loss. But new details about the fringe conservative group behind that crusade suggest that this battle might very likely meet the same fate.
That group, “Alaskans for Honest Elections,” is dedicated to overturning the practice of ranked-choice voting (RCV). But state filings and a recent campaign finance complaint suggest the ballot committee, which features Palin as its national spokesperson, has generated a blizzard of potential violations, including attempts to skirt disclosure laws, obscure its finances, manufacture tax breaks for contributors, and line the pockets of its own officials.
The Alaska lawyer behind that complaint, Scott Kendall of Cashion Gilmore, told The Daily Beast that the bewildering layers of grift are “almost intoxicating.”
“You turn over one rock and there’s more; turn over another and there’s more there too,” Kendall said. “With the kind of simple-mindedness involved here, as an attorney it’s almost intoxicating.”
While the train of shady wheeling and dealing isn’t exactly new or even all that uncommon in the world of political dark money, in this case, it’s been enabled by a curious mechanism: the creation of a new “church” to fund the whole operation—the absurdly named “Ranked Choice Education Association,” which Kendall makes no bones about describing as “completely fake.”
The man behind these groups is right-wing megachurch minister Dr. Art Mathias, who among other things has openly practiced LGBTQ “conversion therapy” and has claimed that COVID vaccines cause “spontaneous abortions” in 80 percent of pregnant women. Mathias has so far sent at least $90,000 in personal contributions to the ballot committee through the RCEA.
And the cause at the center of this mess—ranked-choice voting—doesn’t detract from the absurdity. If anything, it underscores the bizarre lengths the group has gone in the name of shielding its finances.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV), is a ballot format that gives voters the option of listing their backup choices in addition to their preferred candidate, with those totals added up in subsequent tabulation rounds. The format is thought to help weed out extremist candidates, and it has been championed by die-hard conservatives. (Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial primary win in Virginia hinged on the process.) Still, RCV has become a political boogeyman among rightwingers, thanks largely to Palin’s efforts.
Palin lost two RCV contests in 2022: a September special election to temporarily fill the seat of GOP Rep. Don Young, who died earlier that year; then a November election for the permanent slot. They featured two main candidates besides Palin—Democrat Mary Peltola and moderate Republican Nick Begich III. In September, Begich was eliminated after the first round of vote-counting, and when his voters’ second choices were added in, the totals handed Peltola a majority, 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. This repeated itself in November, when Peltola posted a 10-point margin over Palin. (To make things even weirder, Palin reportedly said she would vote for Peltola, a personal friend.)
The widely understood explanation was that RCV worked: Palin’s MAGA extremism repelled a sizable chunk of GOP voters in the deep-red state, and they chose Peltola over the Wasilla firebrand for their backup picks.
But in the following months, Palin adopted the abolition of ranked-choice voting as a casus belli, and she’s teamed up with Alaskans for Honest Elections to make her case. Palin appeared at the group’s CPAC conference booth this year—which AHE scored two months after its inception—and railed against RCV in her speech at the event.
But as the allegations about AHE continue to stack up, Palin’s own choice appears increasingly misguided.
According to a complaint filed with Alaska campaign finance regulators in July, the network of groups has committed an array of violations. The complaint—from an organization that supports ranked-choice voting laws, called “Alaskans for Better Elections”—alleges that the network unlawfully used the “church” to get tax breaks on donations, obscure its finances from the public as well as state and federal regulators, and has additionally kicked cash back to its own officials.
The RCEA—which was formed in Washington state, not Alaska—has also leaned on its self-declared status as a “nonprofit religious organization” to avoid registering as a political group with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. That argument hinges on a legal theory favored by anti-government extremists and which legal experts and courts have tersely dismissed, raising questions about whether this “church” should lose its tax status.
Lloyd Mayer, an expert in nonprofit law at Notre Dame University, said that RCEA’s activities could compromise its tax status.
“First, a church is disqualified from federal tax exemption under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) if lobbying is a substantial part of its activities,” Mayer told The Daily Beast, explaining that the U.S. Treasury Department defines lobbying as including attempts to influence the public regarding a ballot initiative or referendum.
But the RCEA is also nested within two other churches, including Wellspring Ministries, which appears to be subsidizing the whole operation, according to the complaint. (Wellspring also appears to operate an outpost in India.) Coincidentally enough, Wellspring Ministries is also helmed by Mathias.
Kendall, the attorney behind the complaint, described the “cascade” of legal issues and violations his firm uncovered after scratching the surface.
The network’s finances were so opaque, he explained, that their investigation had to reverse-engineer them. “They just weren’t filing the required political disclosures,” he said.
The Daily Beast reached out to Mathias and the Wellspring affiliates but did not receive a response.
AHE was formed on Jan. 8 of this year, state filings show. Those filings also reveal that the group raised around $293,000 in just three weeks, with about 70 percent of that amount purportedly coming as an in-kind donation from another AHE official, Phillip Izon, who claimed to have volunteered $200,000 worth of his time after just two weeks. The RCEA “church” contributed another $76,000 to the group via checks, along with $2,358 in cash—despite state election rules that prohibit cash gifts in excess of $100.
The complaint calls Izon’s $200,000 in-kind claim “absurd” and “laughable,” and alleges that the number was “concocted” in order to mislead the public about the breadth of the group’s support.
“They’re juicing it up to make it look bigger than it is,” Kendall said. “They seem to think that the public perception of their legitimacy will garner more financial support.”
The problem there, he explained, is that it’s illegal to either underreport or overreport your finances.
But that’s just the beginning. Kendall said Izon and his wife are also the group’s sole vendors, and hauled in “every dollar” the network has spent. The group’s total expense reporting doesn’t appear to add up in the filing, either.
AHE reported a little less than $270,000 in expenses in its first weeks. That number includes Izon’s $200,000 in-kind contribution, as well as $67,000 paid to consulting company “Leading Light Advisors”—which business records cited in the complaint tie back to Izon.
Leading Light, it turns out, was also the sole vendor for AHE’s federal super PAC affiliate, “Alaskans for Honest Government.” Federal Election Commission filings show the company received $7,500 total in November, with $5,000 in expenditures supporting Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), whose election at the time was four years away. Only one other federal committee has paid Leading Light—Palin’s 2022 campaign, which shelled out roughly $57,000, mostly for digital ads, along with $2,000 for “photo rights.”
But, according to the complaint, AHE’s money had itself been passed through the Ranked Choice Education Association, the “church” which the complaint claims was established “for the explicit purpose of laundering these funds.”
A state financial disclosure filed in June attributes the majority of donations directly to Mathias, who previously admitted making a $100,000 contribution to the “church” at a February event, the Anchorage Daily News reported. However, filings show that only $90,000 of that made it back to AHE.
“It’s a goofy, esoteric constitutional theory, the kind of guys who get a parking ticket and say they can only pay in gold doubloons or whatever,” Kendall said. “But if that theory were correct, then every super PAC would be a church—the Church of Romney, Church of Ted Cruz, Synagogue of Chuck Schumer. It’s not on me to question anyone’s faith, but I don’t see how ballot measures qualify as a religious cause.”
Lloyd Mayer, the Notre Dame law professor, said this specific claim has been deemed “frivolous” in the eyes of the law.
“The argument that RCEA is a tax exempt church under Internal Revenue Code section 508(c)(1)(A) and not section 501(c)(3) is frivolous because it is inconsistent with the plain language of these statutes,” Mayer said, observing that the U.S. Tax Court rejected this argument in 2000, as did the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that same year.
In 2020, Mayer noted, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California scrapped an attempt to keep a purported church’s finances beyond the reach of the IRS, concluding that those arguments “have no basis in law, and are frivolous.”
The RCEA’s incorporation documents state that its purposes are to “promote Christian doctrines,” establish places of worship, evangelize across the globe, and support missionaries. The group also cites the “preservation of the truth,” and a mission to “train, develop, and support leaders in our community and nation as called for in our beliefs.”
In response to the complaint, Mathias attacked Kendall, a well-known Jewish political attorney in the state, as “Soros-funded” and a “Marxist.”
“He is attacking me, my church, Christians and our initiative to replace his Marxist voting system,” Mathias said, though he has admitted founding the groups and has never explicitly countered Kendall’s legal arguments.
A quick review of Mathias’ own background reveals that this is far from his first extremist rodeo. He’s promoted a number of completely unfounded practices and claims—engaging in LGBTQ “conversion therapy,” declaring he cured his allergies when he “cast out the spirit of fear,” and pushing absurd COVID lies, such as his astounding deduction that COVID vaccines have been proven to “cause spontaneous abortions” and are “killing four out of five babies in the first 20 weeks of gestation.” (Nowhere near true, according to the study that he cited.)
As if things weren’t wild enough, the AHE has chosen for its defense counsel Kevin Clarkson, the disgraced former Alaska attorney general who resigned from office in 2020 amid sexual harassment allegations.
Kendall has taken the attacks in stride.
“They haven’t denied they formed a fake church, they admitted they’ve formed both of these groups as churches, and they haven’t undermined anything factual about the complaint, just broadly characterizing it as misinformation,” he said. “They say it’s none of your business, but to me that’s not a defense.” | US Political Corruption |
Memphis police search for suspect after 4 female victims killed and 1 wounded in 3 linked shootings
Police in Tennessee have launched a manhunt for a suspect believed to have shot and killed four females and critically wounded a fifth at three separate locations during a deadly outbreak of domestic violence
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) —
Police in Tennessee launched a manhunt for a suspect believed to have shot and killed four females and critically wounded a fifth at three separate locations during a deadly outbreak of domestic violence Friday night.
Memphis Police Department officers responded to a report of a shooting at 9:22 p.m. on the 100 Block of Howard Drive. Police found a woman with an apparent gunshot wound who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators determined there had been two other connected fatal shootings. At Field Lark Drive, two women were dead and another was critically wounded, while a fifth woman was found fatally shot on Warrington Road, police said.
The identities and ages of the victims were not immediately available.
Police said they believe the same suspect was responsible for the shootings and began a search for 52-year-old Mavis Christian Jr.
Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were involved in the search, the Memphis police said.
The exact times of the shootings at all the crime scenes were not immediately released in a police statement warning the public not to approach Christian, who was believed to be driving a white 2017 Chevrolet Malibu.
Each of the shootings was believed to be a domestic violence situation, the police said. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A local Democratic official in Connecticut's largest city invoked her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination Friday rather than answer questions in court about allegations of illegal ballot box stuffing during a recent mayoral primary.
Wanda Geter-Pataky, vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, exercised her right to remain silent multiple times during a court hearing in a lawsuit challenging the results of the Sept. 12 primary, in which incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim defeated fellow Democrat John Gomes.
Among the questions she wouldn't answer: Whether she was the woman seen on surveillance footage making multiple trips in the predawn darkness to an election drop box outside a government building, and stuffing papers inside that looked like ballots.
“She is invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege,” her lawyer, John Gulash, told the court.
Testimony began Thursday and is scheduled to continue next week in a court proceeding in which Gomes, Bridgeport’s former chief administrative officer, is demanding a new primary or for Judge William Clark to declare him the victor. Ganim won the primary by 251 votes out of 8,173 cast.
The court fight is taking place just weeks before Bridgeport voters are set to go to the polls in the Nov. 7 general election, when both Ganim and Gomes will be on the ballot again.
The State Elections Enforcement Commission recently launched its own investigation into possible fraud in the Bridgeport primary, based partly over concerns raised in security camera videos that became public shortly after the votes were counted.
In some of them, a woman resembling Geter-Pataky, who works as a greeter at the City Hall annex, can be seen making repeat trips to an absentee ballot drop box outside the building early in the morning on Sept. 5 and stuffing documents inside.
In one video clip shown in court Friday, the woman high-fives a man after watching him deposit possible ballots. In other videos, it appears she hands other people documents that could be ballots and escorts them to the box. Videos were shown of others depositing what appear to be multiple ballots.
Under Connecticut law, people using a collection box to vote by absentee ballot must drop off their completed ballots themselves, or designate certain family members, police, local election officials or a caregiver to do it for them.
Gomes' attorney in the lawsuit, William Bloss, said the videos prove widespread abuse of the absentee ballot system in Bridgeport.
“It started with the Sept. 5 video ... There was all this chatter, ‘Well, it's only one. It's been altered. It's been whatever,’” Bloss said. “Now we know that it was just a small piece of larger coordinated activity.”
Ganim, who was convicted of corruption during a first stint as mayor but won his old job back in an election after his release from prison, has denied any knowledge of wrongdoing related to ballots.
Besides Geter-Pataky, Bloss called former City Council member and current candidate Eneida Martinez to the stand and asked whether she also appears in the latest videos. Martinez, a Democrat, also declined to answer most questions by exercising her 5th Amendment right.
Attorney John Bailey Kennelly, who is representing Bridgeport Democratic Registrar of Voters Patricia Howard, one of the defendants in Gomes' lawsuit, said the video tells “very little" and is insufficient to show the primary results should be set aside.
“It's 24 different drops that are on that exhibit. It involves, I believe, only nine people. So this ‘great conspiracy’ that we've all been hearing about isn't there,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. “That exhibit, in and of itself, is no reason to strip the voters of Bridgeport of their rights and disenfranchise them.”
The Bridgeport case, an unusual legal battle between two Democrats over election rigging allegations, has spread through right-wing social media platforms and on far-right media, connecting the controversy to the 2020 stolen election claims. MyPillow chief executive and election denier Mike Lindell's legal defense fund recently referenced the Bridgeport controversy in a fundraising appeal.
Meanwhile, Ganim has accused the Gomes campaign of hypocrisy, claiming some of his campaign workers were also caught on video depositing multiple absentee ballots into drop boxes. Gomes has said he has spoken with those shown in the videos and been told they were dropping off ballots for relatives. Under Connecticut law, certain family members, police, local election officials or a caregiver can drop off a ballot for an absentee voter.
Ganim has been subpoenaed to testify in Gomes' lawsuit. He could appear on Tuesday. | US Political Corruption |
Law enforcement officials announced new details Monday in the 1975 cold case murder of Gretchen Harrington of Marple Township, Delaware County.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer's office said that they filed charges against David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Georgia -- a former church pastor -- for his alleged role in the 8-year-old Harrington's disappearance and slaying that took place nearly 50 years ago.
"David Zandstra is a monster. He is every parents' worst nightmare," said Stollsteimer on Monday. "He killed that poor girl."
According to court documents, Zandstra was charged with homicide, murder, kidnapping a minor and related offenses.
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Harrington disappeared on Aug. 15, 1975, sometime on a walk from her Marple Township home to a Bible school less than a mile away.
Stollsteimer said that, at that time, Zandstra served as a reverend at Trinity Christian Reformed Church, one of two churches that Harrington regularly attended. As she headed to Bible camp alone, Zandstra pulled alongside her in a vehicle and offered her a ride, Stollsteimer said.
According to Stollsteimer, Zandstra has given police a statement in which he allegedly admitted that he took her to a secluded place, told her to removed her clothes then, when she refused, he ejaculated in front of her before he beat her to death with his fists.
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Harrington's body was discovered weeks later, on Oct 14, that year, in Ridley Creek State Park, more than seven miles from her home.
"This man is evil. He killed this poor 8-year-old girl he knew and who trusted him. And, then he acted as if he was a family friend, not only during her burial and the period after that, but for years."
In a statement, Harrington's family said that they are "extremely hopeful" that the person responsible for Gretchen's death will be held accountable.
“With today's announcement of an arrest, we are extremely hopeful that the person who is responsible for the heinous crime that was committed against our Gretchen will be held accountable. It’s difficult to express the emotions that we are feeling as we take one step closer to justice. Gretchen was only 8 years-old when she was suddenly taken away from us on her way to church on Friday, August 15, 1975. If you met Gretchen, you were instantly her friend. She exuded kindness to all and was sweet and gentle. Even now, when people share their memories of her, the first thing they talk about is how amazing she was and still is…at just 8 years old, she had a lifelong impact on those around her. The abduction and murder of Gretchen has forever altered our family and we miss her every single day. We are grateful for the continual pursuit of justice by law enforcement and we want to thank the Pennsylvania State Police for never stopping in their constant search for answers. We would not be here today if it was not for them. As a family we ask for privacy at this time as we continue to digest this information. Thank you for your understanding, love, and continued support. It means the world to us," read a statement from the family.
Also, the Christian Reformed Church in North America, provided a statement following Zandstra's arrest.
"[W]e would like to extend our condolences to the family of Gretchen Harrington. We were heartbroken to hear about her death. We are additionally grieved to hear that a CRC pastor has been arrested for the murder," read the statement. "We recognize that we live in a broken and sinful world, where violence can happen anywhere – even within our churches and by those we hold to the highest standards. Yet, we strive for our congregations to be places of peace, welcome, hospitality and safety for those who attend. As a denomination, we encourage all congregations to have safe church policies and procedures in place to help prevent abuse."
A pair of authors with ties to the Philadelphia area, recently published a book on the cold case murder and officials said Monday their research helped crack this case.
Officials said Zandstra is currently in police custody in Georgia, but he is fighting extradition.
Contacted for comment on the case, the law office representing Zandstra noted they are aware of the charges against him, but had no immediate comment.
This story will be updated as new information becomes available. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Subscribe: RSS This week on CounterSpin: In May of this year, a white supremacist killed ten people in Buffalo, New York. He made clear that he wanted to kill Black people, because he believes there is a plot, run by Jews, to “replace” white people with Black and brown people. News media had an opportunity then to deeply interrogate the obvious spurs for the horrific act, including of course the media outlets and pundits and politicians who repeatedly invoke this white replacement idea, but it didn’t really happen.
The Washington Post offered an inane tweet about how Biden “ran for president pledging to ‘restore the soul of America.’ But a racist massacre raises questions about that promise.”
CounterSpin spoke at the time about the issues we hoped more media would be exploring, with Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, who has been following Fox News and Tucker Carlson, and their impact on US politics, for years.
CounterSpin220909Gertz.mp3
And we spoke also with Eric K. Ward, senior fellow at Southern Poverty Law Center and executive director at Western States Center, about ways forward.
CounterSpin220909Ward.mp3
We hear these conversations again this week.
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of the assassination of Darya Durgina.
CounterSpin220909Banter.mp3
FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission. | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Former US Republican Representative Liz Cheney made a worrying prediction about newly-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson during a podcast appearance this week, in which she described the Louisiana congressman as “dangerous.”
Ms Cheney, who previously represented Wyoming, said that although Mr Johnson has stated he’s committed to defending the US Constitution, his past actions have shown otherwise, she noted on the Politics is Everythingpodcast hosted by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
“Mike [Johnson] is somebody that I knew well. We were elected together. Our officers were next to each other,” Ms Cheney said.
“Mike is somebody who says that he’s committed to defending the Constitution. But that’s not what he did when we were all tested in the aftermath of the 2020 election.”
She explained that during her time as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021, Mr Johnson attempted to convince 125 Republicans to support an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.
She added that Mr Johnson previously appeared to be willing to set aside “the ruling of the courts, the requirements of the Constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience.
“He was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong,” she said. “And I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character.”
She added: “So it’s a concerning moment to have him be elected Speaker of the House…”
Mr Johnson is “dangerous” she continued, because he was a Republican who knew better than to go along with the efforts to undermine the country by attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Ms Cheney has been a long-time critic of former president Trump and previously served on the House Jan 6 committee, becoming only one of two Republicans to do so.
In May 2021, House Republicans voted her out as chairwoman of the House Republican Conference. At the time, she was the highest-ranking Republican congresswoman.
Mr Johnson, who is a US Republican Representative from Louisiana, has espoused extreme views on homosexuality and previously supported a national abortion ban. | US Congress |
Mike Johnson reveals House GOP agenda in first press conference as speaker: What you missed
Johnson made clear that House Republicans, despite their razor-thin majority, won’t cede to the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. The Louisiana Republican reiterated he is pushing forward with an Israel funding bill with spending cuts despite drawing backlash from Senate leadership and a veto threat from President Joe Biden.
At the same time, Johnson acknowledged Congress’ need to avert a government shutdown by the Nov. 17 funding deadline and floated a stop-gap spending bill – referred to as a continuing resolution – to punt the deadline until Jan. 15.
The goal for House Republicans, Johnson said, is a return to “fiscal responsibility.”
Johnson also teased a decision coming “very soon” from House Republicans on their ongoing impeachment inquiry into Biden over allegations he financially benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.
Johnson not backing down from Israel funding fight
House Republicans are slated to push through legislation providing $14 billion in military support for Israel as it fights its war against Hamas. The funding bill was an open rebuke of Biden’s supplemental request from Congress for a broader national security bill that would have provided assistance to other U.S. allies such as Ukraine and Taiwan.
The bill included an offset as well to pay for the Israel aid, rescinding $14 billion from additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service from the Inflation Reduction Act, making Johnson’s Israel proposal even more unpalatable for Democrats. The Inflation Reduction Act is one of Biden’s several championed Democratic policies and the president has often touted the bill at rallies.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the House GOP’s proposed aid package “woefully inadequate” and “deeply flawed” on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
He emphasized the package's proposal which includes IRS cuts, referencing Johnson’s attempt to combine the the cuts with the aid package. Schumer had a response to the newly-elected House leader: "What a joke."
The majority leader said the Senate will not be considering the House’s proposal and instead will work on their own bipartisan aid package that will focus on aid to Israel and Ukraine, competition with the Chinese government and humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Johnson shrugged off the criticism at the press conference, saying Congress must address the national debt.
“We want to protect and help and assist our friend Israel but we have to keep our own House in order as well,” Johnson said. “While we take care of obligations, we have to do it in a responsible manner.”
Plan for averting a government shutdown ‘yet to be determined’
There is less than two weeks to avert a shutdown and while Johnson said a plan has “yet to be determined” on how the House will fund the government in time, there is also a “growing recognition” that Congress will have to kick the can down the road again with another short-term funding bill.
Johnson said he would like to see a continuing resolution that punts the government funding deadline to Jan. 15 but said House Republicans have floated other options including a “laddered” stopgap.
Congress must pass 12 separate appropriation bills to avert a shutdown – each bill aims at a specific function of the government from defense to transportation. Past continuing resolutions have temporarily extended all government functions but a “laddered” stopgap would stagger different functions and place multiple deadlines for government funding.
“We’ll see how that goes. I think we can build consensus around it,” Johnson said of a staggered funding plan. “But I think there’s a recognition that we have to complete the job and we’ve run out the clock on this but we want to do what’s right for the American people.”
Decision on President Joe Biden impeachment coming ‘very soon’
House Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry into Biden in September over allegations the president financially benefited from his son’s foreign affairs. Democrats and the White House have decried the probe, arguing GOP investigators have found little to no evidence suggesting Joe Biden reaped personal benefits from Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Johnson did not offer details behind what House Republicans would charge Biden with if they moved forward in the impeachment process but said at the press conference a decision would come “very soon.”
“I do believe that very soon we are coming to a point of decision on it,” Johnson said, praising Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Jason Smith, R-Mo., for leading the inquiry. The three GOP lawmakers are chairs of the Oversight Committee, Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee respectively.
“They’ve been taking the evidence as it goes so we’re going to follow the evidence and we’ll see. I’m not going to predetermine this one," Johnson said.
Johnson promises to tie Ukraine and border funding together
Johnson’s standalone Israel proposal which was an open defiance of Biden’s supplemental request has left Congress’ Ukraine supporters concerned over the future of continued U.S. aid to Ukraine as it attempts to fight off Russia’s invasion in a counteroffensive.
But any additional aid to Ukraine, Johnson said, must include funding for additional security at the southern border which could turn away Democratic support.
“Ukraine will come in short order and it will come next,” Johnson said. “We want to pair border security with Ukraine because I think we can get bipartisan agreement on both of those matters.”
“We have things that we can and should do around the world but we have to take care of our own house first and as long as the border’s wide open, we’re opening ourselves up for great threat,” he added.
While the details of border funding have yet to be hashed out, some House Republicans – particularly more conservative members – have been adamant on attaching their version of a border bill passed earlier this year. The legislation, dubbed the “Securing the Border Act of 2023,” has been derided by Democratic critics as overly harsh.
Contributing: Rachel Looker | US Congress |
Republicans could have avoided opening an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden simply by subpoenaing his son. But they have no good answer for why they didn’t take that option instead.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Tuesday, after months of the GOP insisting that the president and his son Hunter Biden are guilty of corruption and influence peddling overseas. Republicans have yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims.
And throughout all of the hearings and interviews, Republicans have not once subpoenaed Hunter Biden for testimony. When asked Wednesday why that was the case, House Oversight Chair James Comer, who has led the charge against the Bidens, couldn’t answer.
During an interview with Newsmax, Comer said that Hunter Biden is “more than welcome” to testify on Capitol Hill. “He’s invited today. We will drop everything,” the Kentucky Republican said.
When host Rob Finnerty pointed out that Hunter Biden was unlikely to voluntarily appear before Congress, Comer haltingly replied, “Well, he can fight the subpoena in court. It’s very difficult…if it were easy to get a president or their son in front of a House committee, then the January 6 committee probably would have done that with Donald Trump.”
Comer’s right that the House investigative committee on January 6 struggled to get Trump to appear. But that may be due to the fact that Trump swore in 2019 that he would fight “all the subpoenas” for investigations into his actions. His administration refused to provide information for more than 100 congressional investigations, and Trump even sued his own accounting firm to try to block it from giving his tax records to Congress.
In comparison, nearly 70 Biden administration officials have provided testimony, either in hearings or transcribed interviews. Oversight Committee members have been briefed by high-level FBI and Secret Service officials, and they have received thousands of documents from the Treasury and the FBI.
But rather than subpoena Hunter Biden, Republicans moved right to an impeachment inquiry. Despite Comer’s hedging, the GOP has already admitted why. Republicans know they don’t have enough evidence to actually impeach and convict Biden. They just want to make him look bad enough that he loses the 2024 election. | US Political Corruption |
The former president falsely claimed during a break in his civil fraud trial in New York on Wednesday that it was keeping him from being on the 2024 campaign trail. “I have to be here instead of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, lots of other great places,” Trump whined to reporters. “They want me to be here.”
Trump, however, does not have to be at his trial.
And he gave the game away less than 240 seconds later when asked if he’d return to the courthouse on Thursday.
“Probably not,” he replied. “I have a very big professional golf tournament at Doral, so probably not.”
“Oh my God,” exclaimed host Mika Brzezinski.
Joe Scarborough sarcastically mocked the “injustice of it all.”
“You can’t make it up,” he said. “You can see his mind. He can’t even remember who he is running against. He thinks he is running against Barack Obama, so how do you expect him, four minutes later, to remember the lie he told four minutes ago?”
His cohost Willie Geist agreed, saying, “It’s perfection.”
Watch the video here:
New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in her case against Trump that he and his company massively overvalued their assets for years, helping them to secure loans and seal deals.
Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled Trump and his company committed fraud. The trial centers on other claims of conspiracy and falsifying business records.
Trump made a similar claim about the trial keeping him from campaigning earlier this month. “This is politics,” he said at the courthouse. “Now, it has been very successful for them because they took me off the campaign trail. Because I’ve been sitting in a courthouse all day long instead of being in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or a lot of other places I could be at.”
CNN’s Dana Bash pointed out, however, that there’s “no requirement” for him to be there. She added, “His campaign aides make it pretty clear that they think that this is the best campaign stop for him, the best use of his time as a candidate in the short term, as he could possibly have.” | US Political Corruption |
Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly told his supporters he will serve as their “retribution” if he is elected again in 2024.
But in a Fox News town hall moderated by Sean Hannity on Tuesday night, Trump sidestepped a question about whether he would abuse power or seek retribution against political enemies.
“Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever if reelected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people?” Hannity asked.
Trump did not directly answer the question and instead pointed to his own four indictments and dismissed the 91 criminal charges he faces as “made up charges.”
Later, Hannity again pressed Trump, asking, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”
“Except for day one. I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump replied.
“I’m going to be, you know he keeps, we love this guy, he says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling.’ After that I’m not a dictator,” Trump said.
The former president’s comments came days after former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who lost her seat to a Trump-backed primary challenger last year after she participated in the House commission that probed the January 6, 2021, insurrection, said the nation would be “sleepwalking into a dictatorship” if Trump wins next year.
Hannity responded that Trump’s answer sounded policy-focused, rather than addressing whether he’d seek political retribution against enemies.
Trump also pointed to his own four indictments and dismissed the 91 criminal charges he faces as “made up charges” and “nonsense.”
“I often say Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals,” he said. “And he got indicted once. I got indicted four times.”
Despite Trump’s answer Tuesday night, his campaign and allies have long plotted to wield executive power in unprecedented ways if he is elected again.
Trump’s plan includes asserting more White House control over the Justice Department, an institution the former president has said he would utilize to seek revenge on his critics, including former allies.
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” the former president said in June after his arraignment in Florida. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”
During a recent interview with Univision, Trump took it a step further.
“If I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say go down and indict them,” he said.
In videos and speeches, he has laid out his plans to gut the current Justice system by firing “radical Marxist prosecutors that are destroying America.”
It’s part of a broader effort that would break down legal restrictions and traditional protections against political interference and give the White House more authority to install ideological allies throughout the federal government.
Part of Trump’s plans would reclassify tens of thousands of civil service workers — who typically remain on the job as presidents and their administrations change — as at-will employees, a move that would make it much easier to fire them.
Trump said in a March video that he would sign an executive order doing so, which he said would allow him “to remove rogue bureaucrats.” He vowed to “wield that power very aggressively.”
If Trump is elected next year and pursues the blueprint his campaign and allies are now developing, legal experts say it would lead to years of legal battles and political clashes with Congress over the limits of presidential authority.
Biden, meanwhile, has said the threat posed by another Trump presidency is central to his rationale for seeking a second term.
Biden told Democratic donors Tuesday he wasn’t confident he’d be seeking another term if Trump wasn’t running for the White House, a notably candid assessment of his reelection rationale as he enters a likely rematch with his 2020 rival.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” he said, saying Democrats “cannot let him win.”
Here are other highlights from Trump’s town hall:
Trump predicts Biden bails on 2024 election
Trump also said he thinks Biden, who at 81 is four years older than Trump, won’t remain the Democratic nominee by the time the November 2024 election arrives.
“I personally don’t think he makes it. I think he’s in bad shape physically,” Trump said.
One name he floated: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, with whom he said he had a good relationship in the past.
“He’s slick, but he’s got no facts,” Trump said of Newsom.
The former president made clear he’d watched Newsom and DeSantis debate last week on Hannity’s program.
“Considering that he didn’t have the facts, I thought he did well,” Trump said of Newsom. “He’d certainly be one.”
He also noted the political reality of bypassing Vice President Kamala Harris, saying that Democrats would anger Black voters by doing so.
Trump hits DeSantis on Social Security
Trump took a swing at Ron DeSantis, one of his top 2024 GOP rivals, saying the Florida governor wants “to play around with your Social Security.”
He was referencing DeSantis’ votes as a congressman for nonbinding budget resolutions that would have raised the retirement age to 70.
Trump’s comments came after Hannity asked about the national debt. Trump — who years ago supported some of the same policies he now criticizes his rivals for backing — said the United States can eliminate looming entitlement shortfalls by expanding domestic oil and gas production.
“We have money laying the ground, far greater than anything we can do by hurting senior citizens with their Social Security,” Trump said.
CNN’s Kate Sullivan contributed to this report. | US Federal Elections |
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Friday is expected to release the full report compiled by a special grand jury that helped an investigation by the Georgia prosecutor who ultimately indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 others.
The special grand jury spent seven months hearing from some 75 witnesses before completing a report in December with recommendations for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Willis had said she needed the panel’s subpoena power to compel the testimony of witnesses who might otherwise not have been willing to appear.
While most of the intrigue in the inner workings of the case has diminished with the filing of charges, the special grand jury report will still provide the public with insight into how closely the indictment tracks with the panel’s recommendations on who should be indicted. It should reveal whether the panel envisioned the wide-ranging conspiracy that prosecutors ultimately alleged.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered the partial release of the report in February but declined to immediately release the panel’s recommendations on who should or should not be prosecuted. The judge said at the time that he wanted to protect people’s due process rights.
McBurney said in a new order filed Aug. 28 that the due process concerns were moot since a regular grand jury has indicted Trump and 18 other people under the state’s anti-racketeering law. All have pleaded not guilty.
McBurney had set a deadline of 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 for anyone who might believe that any part of the report shouldn’t be published to object to its release. It didn’t appear from the online court docket that anyone had objected, so McBurney is expected to make the full report public at 10 a.m. Friday.
Many of those indicted — including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — are known to have testified before the special grand jury. Trump himself was never called and did not appear before the panel.
The parts of the report previously released in February included its introduction and conclusion, as well as a section in which the grand jurors expressed concerns that one or more witnesses may have lied under oath and urged prosecutors to seek charges for perjury. The panel’s foreperson had said in news interviews that the special grand jurors had recommended that numerous people be indicted. | US Political Corruption |
MOSCOW (Idaho Statesman) — Some of the families of the four University of Idaho students killed in Moscow last fall oppose tearing down the off-campus home where the crime occurred before suspect Bryan Kohberger’s murder trial in October.
A date has yet to be set for demolition of the King Road home, according to the university. But U of I wants to remove the six-bedroom house from the property before Aug. 21, when students return to Moscow for the fall semester, university spokesperson Jodi Walker told the Idaho Statesman last week.
The four victims were U of I seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21; and junior Xana Kernodle and freshman Ethan Chapin, both 20. With two other housemates, the three women rented the home just north of new Greek Row, while Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and stayed over the night of their deaths.
Kohberger, 28, a former graduate student at Washington State University, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. The state intends to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
Shanon Gray, attorney for the Goncalves family, said the university is disregarding families’ requests that the home be left standing until after Kohberger’s trial. The murder trial is scheduled to start in Latah County on Oct. 2.
“The university asked for the families’ opinions on the demolition and then proceeded to ignore those opinions and pursue their own self-interests,” Gray said in an email to the Idaho Statesman. “The home itself has enormous evidentiary value as well as being the largest, and one of the most important, pieces of evidence in the case.”
Last week, crews were at the boarded-up King Road property to begin preparations for tearing down the home, Walker said. Meeting an Aug. 21 deadline would entail demolishing it within the next seven weeks.
“Our focus right now is on removing the personal items and making those available to the families,” Walker told the Statesman in an email. “We know that these items are extremely important and care needs to be taken to ensure they can retrieve the items of their loved ones. This will take some time.”
U OF I: DEFENSE, PROSECUTION DO NOT OBJECT TO DEMOLITION
Following the November killings, the owner of the King Road rental home donated the property to the university, the school announced in February — along with announcing its intent to demolish it. The home was most recently assessed at a value of about $344,000, according to previous Statesman reporting.
Members of the Mogen and Kernodle families also oppose the destruction of the home until after the trial, Gray said. Gray told the Statesman he does not represent the Chapin family and is unsure where they stand on the matter.
The Statesman has reached out to members of the Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin families for comment.
Along with the Goncalves family, Gray represents Mogen’s family in tort claims filed in May against the university, city of Moscow and Idaho State Police. The legal step preserves the two families’ right to sue each of the government entities if they choose related to the deaths of their children, the Statesman previously reported.
Walker said that university officials have remained in “regular communication” with the four victims’ families since taking ownership of the house.
On June 17, Gray sent an email to U of I identifying the wishes of the Goncalves, Mogen and Kernodle families about leaving the home untouched for the time being. Gray provided the Statesman with an email response from university attorney Kent Nelson documenting that request, which also noted the tort claims filed by Gray on behalf of the Goncalveses and Mogens.
“… (O)ur research has not revealed any civil action you could file to create a duty in the university to preserve the house,” Nelson wrote. “The university has good-faith reasons for wanting to demolish the house and the university did not own the house when the homicides occurred. In addition, the defendant was not, and is not, affiliated with the university in any way.”
Nelson added that neither the prosecution nor defense objected to the property being destroyed, and also wrote that it had been released from the criminal proceedings. He told Gray that U of I needed “cogent argument” that cited relevant case law, rules or statutes from the families to deviate from its plan to move forward with demolition of the house.
He requested that by the end of the day on June 23.
Gray said Nelson sent him the email response on June 22, which provided him with a single day. Gray did not respond to the Statesman about whether he met that deadline.
“The University of Idaho is choosing to demolish the home on King Road despite the wishes of the victims’ families,” Gray told the Statesman. “By waiting to demo the King Road home until after the trial, (it) would honor the families’ wishes and support the judicial process if the home is needed in the future by the prosecution, defense or jurors.”
For now, the university appears to be maintaining its plans to raze the King Road house ahead of students returning to campus.
“We appreciate that the families, as well as the entire university community, are working through their grief and navigating their own paths forward in these trying circumstances,” Nelson wrote to Gray. “The university believes demolishing the house will promote healing for members of all of the families, as well as for our students, the larger university community and the Moscow community writ large.” | US Crime, Violence, Terrorism & cybercrime |
Staff for the Alaska Public Offices Commission have recommended a $16,450 fine against Preserve Democracy, a group led by former U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka.
In a report released Friday, staff for the state’s campaign finance regulator concluded that Preserve Democracy failed to register with the commission before campaigning in favor of a proposed ballot measure that would repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting system.
The new report is only a recommendation: Any fines must be approved by the commission, which meets next month.
The report was issued in response to a complaint filed in July by Alaskans for Better Elections, a group that backs ranked choice voting here.
Staff dismissed allegations that Preserve Democracy improperly participated in Anchorage’s municipal election and that Tshibaka acted as an unregistered lobbyist, but attorney Scott Kendall, who filed the complaint on behalf of Alaskans for Better Elections, said of the result, “on the whole, we’re very pleased … The staff definitely did some hard work.”
While the recommended fine is relatively small in the context of a statewide political campaign, Kendall said that if the complaint is upheld, it will force Preserve Democracy to disclose its donors and register with the state.
“The main nexus of the case for my client was the unregistered campaigning in favor of a ballot measure, and that’s the big piece,” Kendall said. “And that’s where APOC clearly agrees.”
According to the report, timing was the key factor: Preserve Democracy set up a website opposing ranked choice voting just as repeal proponents launched their ballot measure.
Tshibaka spoke at events in February 2023, said her group was coordinating with a separate group supporting the repeal, and urged people to sign the petition for repeal.
Though Preserve Democracy’s website doesn’t specifically mention the repeal petition, “under all the circumstances, it was susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation but as an exhortation to support the (repeal) petition,” staff wrote.
That matters because campaign activity is regulated, and general speech on a particular topic is not.
Staff concluded that Preserve Democracy needed to register as a campaign entity, report its spending, and insert campaign-specific disclosures on its website.
Matt Singer, an attorney representing Preserve Democracy and Tshibaka, said his clients “strongly disagree with the staff’s conclusion that the website is an independent (campaign) expenditure.”
“It’s essentially taking free speech, political speech, the fact that Ms. Tshibaka expressed an opinion about the initiative, and because she expressed an opinion about the initiative, that converts a website that doesn’t talk about the initiative into advocacy,” Singer said.
“It’s just not consistent with past advice and decisions. So we look forward to taking it to hearing and to court, and to the Supreme Court if we need to,” he said.
A separate complaint, filed against the group directly backing the repeal petition, has yet to be analyzed by commission staff. A report on that complaint is expected before the end of the month.
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Andrew Kitchenman for questions: [email protected]. Follow Alaska Beacon on Facebook and Twitter. | US Campaigns & Elections |
Republicans and Democrats are again preparing to play a game of chicken over the U.S. debt ceiling – with the nation’s financial stability at stake.
The Treasury Department on Jan. 13, 2023, said it expects the U.S. to hit the current debt limit of $31.38 trillion on Jan. 19. After that, the government will take “extraordinary measures” – which could extend the deadline until May or June – to avoid default.
READ MORE: The federal government is set to max out on debt. Here’s why it could start a political standoff
But it’s not clear whether Republicans in the House will agree to lifting the debt ceiling without strings attached – strings that President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats have vowed to reject. Right-wing Republicans demanded that, in exchange for voting for Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, he would seek steep government spending cuts as a condition of raising the borrowing limit.
Economist Steve Pressman explains what the debt ceiling is and why we have it – and why it’s time to abolish it.
What is the debt ceiling?
Like the rest of us, governments must borrow when they spend more money than they receive. They do so by issuing bonds, which are IOUs that promise to repay the money in the future and make regular interest payments. Government debt is the total sum of all this borrowed money.
The debt ceiling, which Congress established a century ago, is the maximum amount the government can borrow. It’s a limit on the national debt.
What’s the national debt?
On Jan. 10, 2023, U.S. government debt was $30.92 trillion, about 22% more than the value of all goods and services that will be produced in the U.S. economy this year.
Around one-quarter of this money the government actually owes itself. The Social Security Administration has accumulated a surplus and invests the extra money, currently $2.8 trillion, in government bonds. And the Federal Reserve holds $5.5 trillion in U.S. Treasurys.
The rest is public debt. As of October 2022, foreign countries, companies and individuals owned $7.2 trillion of U.S. government debt. Japan and China are the largest holders, with around $1 trillion each. The rest is owed to U.S. citizens and businesses, as well as state and local governments. Why is there a borrowing limit?
Before 1917, Congress would authorize the government to borrow a fixed sum of money for a specified term. When loans were repaid, the government could not borrow again without asking Congress for approval.
The Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, which created the debt ceiling, changed this. It allowed a continual rollover of debt without congressional approval.
Congress enacted this measure to let then-President Woodrow Wilson spend the money he deemed necessary to fight World War I without waiting for often-absent lawmakers to act. Congress, however, did not want to write the president a blank check, so it limited borrowing to $11.5 billion and required legislation for any increase.
The debt ceiling has been increased dozens of times since then and suspended on several occasions. The last change occurred in December 2021, when it was raised to $31.38 trillion. What happens when the U.S. hits the ceiling?
Currently, the U.S. Treasury has under $400 billion cash on hand, and the U.S. government expects to borrow around $100 billion each month this year.
When the U.S. nears its debt limit, the Treasury secretary – currently Janet Yellen – can use “extraordinary measures” to conserve cash, which she indicated would begin on Jan. 19. One such measure is temporarily not funding retirement programs for government employees. The expectation will be that once the ceiling is raised, the government would make up the difference. But this will buy only a small amount of time.
If the debt ceiling isn’t raised before the Treasury Department exhausts its options, decisions will have to be made about who gets paid with daily tax revenues. Further borrowing will not be possible. Government employees or contractors may not be paid in full. Loans to small businesses or college students may stop.
WATCH: Economists and business leaders raise alarm about looming debt ceiling deadline
When the government can’t pay all its bills, it is technically in default. Policymakers, economists and Wall Street are concerned about a calamitous financial and economic crisis. Many fear that a government default would have dire economic consequences – soaring interest rates, financial markets in panic and maybe an economic depression.
Under normal circumstances, once markets start panicking, Congress and the president usually act. This is what happened in 2013 when Republicans sought to use the debt ceiling to defund the Affordable Care Act.
But we no longer live in normal political times. The major political parties are more polarized than ever, and the concessions McCarthy gave right-wing Republicans may make it impossible to get a deal on the debt ceiling.
Is there a better way?
One possible solution is a legal loophole allowing the U.S. Treasury to mint platinum coins of any denomination. If the U.S. Treasury were to mint a $1 trillion coin and deposit it into its bank account at the Federal Reserve, the money could be used to pay for government programs or repay government bondholders. This could even be justified by appealing to Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.”
Few countries even have a debt ceiling. Other governments operate effectively without it. America could too. A debt ceiling is dysfunctional and periodically puts the U.S. economy in jeopardy because of political grandstanding.
The best solution would be to scrap the debt ceiling altogether. Congress already approved the spending and the tax laws that require more debt. Why should it also have to approve the additional borrowing?
It should be remembered that the original debt ceiling was put in place because Congress couldn’t meet quickly and approve needed spending to fight a war. In 1917 cross-country travel was by rail, requiring days to get to Washington. This made some sense then. Today, when Congress can vote online from home, this is no longer the case.
This is an updated version of an article first published on July 18, 2019.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | US Federal Policies |
by Christopher Short
Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday became the first speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to be voted out of the position in the middle of his first term. Traditionally, two years is the minimum tenure of a speaker – it’s not too uncommon that someone gets tapped to lead the House, only to see their party voted down to minority status in the next election. It takes some special backstabbing, though, for a speaker to find himself in McCarthy’s position… so special, in fact, that it just happened for the first time in 118 congresses!
McCarthy started his term with another unprecedented distinction, holding the record of most votes (3,091) in speaker elections since at least the Civil War. He got 192 from the minority Republicans in 2019, 209 in 2021, and 2,690 across 15 ballots in January. (Matt Gaetz, R.-Fla., was the last holdout then, and the author of his undoing today. There’s a lesson in there, all you who aspire toward any sort of personal integrity.)
Second place on this list? Sam Rayburn, who received 2,800 votes … and served as speaker for 17 years.
It is as yet unclear who will succeed McCarthy, nor when, nor what business if any the House can accomplish without a speaker. But that’s a problem for days to come: In McCarthy’s “honor,” here is the full list of speakers who served less than a term, and lived to tell about it. Spoiler alert: None of them are nearly as sordid as this one.
Langdon Cheves (Democratic-Republican, S.C.) – Jan. 19, 1814 – March 3, 1815 (408 days)
Cheves’s tenure was always meant to be temporary: He filled in for the popular speaker Henry Clay, while Clay was off in Europe negotiating an end to the War of 1812. The treaty wasn’t wrapped up until December, which means that Cheves (pronounced “chivis”) was in the saddle when Britain burned down Washington; the House had to relocate to a former hotel room. That doesn’t mean we should feel bad for old Langdon: After his political career, he became a loud voice for secession, and we know how that turned out.
John Bell (D., Tenn.) – June 2, 1834 – March 3, 1835 (274 days)
Like Cheves before him, Bell got his job when the president tapped the sitting speaker to go to Europe. This time the president was Andrew Jackson, the speaker was Andrew Stevenson, the job was Minister to Great Britain – and Bell beat James K. Polk in the election to replace him. The Tennesseean was never technically a Democrat, but rather belonged at the time to its predecessor Jacksonian party, that 19th-century curiosity assembled by Martin Van Buren to back “Old Hickory.” But Bell had fallen out with the president before his ascent to the speaker’s chair, and Jackson’s actual supporters boosted Polk to the speakership in the next congress, a stepping stone to Polk’s successful one-term presidency (and They Might Be Giants tribute).
Theodore Pomeroy (R., N.Y.) – March 3-March 4, 1869 (1 day)
This one is the result of a nice gesture. Schuyler Colfax resigned the speakership to assume the vice presidency, and the universally liked Pomeroy was set to retire the next day anyhow. The house elected him by acclamation, and … well, he got a kick out of it, thanking his colleagues for “the kind personal consideration which is involved in my unanimous election to this most honorable position.” (No one has called it that for a while…)
Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) – Jan. 7-Oct. 3, 2023 (269 days)
LOL. | US Congress |
The finances of about 40 million Americans with college loans may take a hit now that the Supreme Court hasto forgive up to $20,000 per person in student debt.
Borrowers are now facing a double whammy this summer because the high court invalidated the plan just before the pause on debt repayment lifts in September. That means borrowers will need to start repaying their loans on September 1 without any debt relief, experts note.
The Biden plan, announced last August, was aimed at wiping out the student-loan debt of 20 million Americans, while lowering the balances of 20 million others who qualified for the relief. On Friday, the court's conservative majority found that federal law does not authorize the program to wipe out nearly half-a-trillion dollars in debt.
With repayments resuming without any debt relief, more than 12 million borrowers could find it difficult to make their payments, according to a new analysis from the Financial Health Network.
Borrowers "need to protect themselves," said Michele Shepard, senior director of college affordability at The Institute for College Access & Success, an advocacy group for affordable higher education, before the decision was announced. "Repayments will definitely restart in the fall."
About 16 million peoplefor Biden's debt forgiveness plan before the program was halted last year due to the legal challenges. Another several million people had also applied but weren't approved before the program was halted.
Here's how to prepare.
How does the ruling impact debt repayments?
The resumption of debt repayments was going to happen on September 1, no matter what the Supreme Court ruled, experts noted.
But the ruling impacts repayments because borrowers will have to restart their payments based on their full balance, without the benefit of up to $20,000 in debt relief.
Figure out which servicer has your loan
Student-loan repayments are slated to restart on September 1 under the deal negotiated by the Biden administration and lawmakers, which wasearlier this month.
That comes after repayments were put on hold, and interest rates were set to 0%, starting in March 2020 due to the pandemic. In other words, millions of Americans with student loans haven't had to make a payment in more than three years.
The first step in preparing to resume repayments is to log into your account at the Federal Student Aid website, which will tell you which servicer is handling your loans. Some people may learn that their servicers have changed since March 2020, Shepard said.
Next, make sure you can log into your account with the servicer.
"It's as simple as making sure you have the information to log into your student loan account," she noted. "We are hearing people haven't had to log in for a few years and can't remember how to log in, and then they have to call someone and there is an hour-long hold to reset their password."
Check your balance and payment amount
Next, figure out what your balance is and how much you'll be on the hook for in September.
"Look at your loan status, your interest rate, and see what is your repayment plan. Do that as much as possible in advance," Shepard advised. "You won't regret being prepared."
Consider switching your repayment plan
It might make sense for some borrowers to switch to a different type of repayment plan, depending on their financial situation, Shepard noted.
For instance, an income-driven repayment plan, or IDR, can be helpful because they peg borrowers' payments to their monthly income. About one-third of all borrowers are enrolled in an IDR, according to Pew Research.
Student debt holders can use a loan simulator at the Federal Student Aid site to figure out which plan is best for them.
The most generous plan is called the Revised Pay As You Earn, or REPAYE, program, which was first introduced in 2016. The Biden administration isthe program to add more borrower-friendly terms, but that overhaul isn't yet complete, Shepard noted. Even so, the REPAYE plan could work for some borrowers.
"The only real downside is because your monthly payments are lower, you could pay more over the life of the loan because your interest will be accruing," she noted.
for more features. | SCOTUS |
GOP Rep. Tim Burchett says former Speaker Kevin McCarthy elbowed him on Capitol Hill
Burchett was talking to a reporter following a closed-door Republican conference meeting when the ousted speaker walked past behind him and hit him in the back. The Tennessee Republican, who was one of eight GOP members who voted to remove McCarthy in October, said it was purposeful.
“I was one of eight that voted him out,” Burchett told reporters Tuesday morning, calling McCarthy a “bully.”
“He’s mean and he knows it,” Burchett added, believing the exchange to be personal. “It’s not very surprising. It was uncool. A guy throws a rock over the fence when he was a kid and runs home and hides behind his momma’s skirt. He’s got his security detail around, he knows nobody’s gonna do anything to him.”
Burchett also told CNN that he ran after the former House speaker on Tuesday.
“I was like, what the heck? Why’d you do that? Because I can say if you’ve ever been hit in the kidneys, it’s a little different. You don’t have to hit very hard to cause a little bit of pain,” the Tennessee Republican told the outlet, calling the exchange “a little heated.”
USA TODAY has reached out to McCarthy’s office for comment.
McCarthy told CNN that the hallway where he passed Burchett was tight, denying that he shoved or elbowed him.
McCarthy said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN that he was particularly surprised at Burchett's vote to oust him, considering Burchett supported him in his bid for the speakership in January.The former speaker said Burchett "changed during the time" and was chasing "the press and the personality."
Burchett along with a handful of GOP rebels led by conservative hardliner Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., voted to eject McCarthy from the speakership in part for working with Democrats to avert a government shutdown. McCarthy has said he does not regret his decision to fund the government and would do it again if he knew it would have cost him the gavel.
After the Tuesday incident, Gaetz filed a formal ethics complaint against McCarthy, accusing McCarthy of assaulting Burchett and violating lawmakers' code of conduct. | US Congress |
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Washington Post and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart compared Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and former President Trump to Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader in "Star Wars" on Friday.Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks appeared on "PBS News Hour" with Judy Woodruff to discuss various topics, including Cheney's upcoming primary. Brooks called Cheney "a hero," but noted she is behind her Republican challenger by more than 22 percent and likely to lose her seat. That's when Capehart praised her as comparable to a beloved Jedi."And, look, I keep thinking about the scene in ‘Star Wars: Episode IV,’ when Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi are battling it out on the Death Star. And Obi-Wan says to Darth Vader, ‘If you strike me down, I will come back more powerful than you can imagine,’" Capehart said. Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, June 28, 2022. ((AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File))WYOMING VOTERS TELL CNN ‘HELL NO,’ ‘ABSOLUTELY NOT’ WHEN ASKED IF THEY WILL SUPPORT LIZ CHENEY He explained, "And, to me, Liz Cheney is Obi-Wan Kenobi. If she loses, which she very well might lose her primary on August 16, she could very well come back more powerful than Donald Trump has imagined. And if her goal is to ensure that he never comes within any manner of feet of the Oval Office, if she can succeed in doing that, she will have done a major service to the American experiment."While Cheney is facing waning support from Republicans in her home state, liberal mainstream outlets have showered her with praise since it was announced in 2021 that she would take part in the Democrat-led House committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and their connection to Donald Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., right, after being ousted from her leadership role in the House Republican Conference at US Capitol in Washington, on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)PETER MEIJER SAYS DEMOCRAT MEDDLING IN HIS GOP PRIMARY ‘PAINTS VERY TELLING PICTURE’ OF US POLITICS Capehart praised Cheney for putting her political position at risk to attack Trump."She has made it clear that going after, speaking truth to power, not cowering in the face of Donald Trump, even putting her political career on the line, that that is what she's going to do, because she's decided that saving American democracy, standing up for the rule of law and the Constitution in the face of a grave threat is much more important than holding elective office in Wyoming," Capehart said. Liz Cheney has received media praise for taking part in the Democrat-led House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol. ((AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite))CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThis support for Cheney contrasts with years of disdain for her and her father Dick Cheney’s conservative policies. The Washington Post, where Capehart works, previously published several pieces against her including one in 2019 titled "Liz Cheney’s empty words." Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @lmkornick. | US Congress |
Donald Trump has been whining about Fox News lately. The former president is upset because the network has been using what he deems to be unflattering photographs of him and has apparently refused to show the numerous polls in which he is beating Joe Biden “by a lot.” These “numerous polls” are, of course, basically nonexistent: Of the 30 most recent polls listed at RealClearPolitics, Biden is ahead in 18, and five are tied. The seven in which Trump leads are mostly either from Rasmussen—which is almost an arm of the Republican National Committee—or from Mark Penn, the ex–Democratic pollster who’s been sucking up to Trump for years now.
Meanwhile, Fox News has been carping about Trump as well, because he’s not participating in the network’s Republican presidential primary debate this Wednesday. The suits—you know; the courageous muckrakers whose corrupt chicanery recently cost them $787 million and might make them cough up even more in the lawsuit likely coming to trial next year—have been wining and dining Trump, begging him to liven up an event that promises to conjure about as much star power as a Mr. Belvedere reunion. It’s even been reported that Rupert Murdoch has been urging Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin to get into the race, now that Ron DeSantis—the man the New York Post once touted as “DeSavior”—is turning out to be DeBummer.
We’ve seen Trump and Fox feud like this periodically over the years. A long time ago—back in 2015, say, when Trump said rude things about Megyn Kelly after she had the audacity to ask him a real question, about his long record of over-the-top sexist comments about women—the animosity seemed real. At the time, Fox was still figuring out where it stood on Trump.
There’s no mystery now. Sure, it may well be the case that Murdoch, given the chance to wave a magic wand, would cast his spell in favor of a different candidate to emerge as the Republican nominee. But even Murdoch doesn’t have that power. Barring some kind of political earthquake, Trump will be the Republican candidate for president. Once that’s clear to everyone, America’s Pravda will be right there in his corner every step of the way.
Some people try to compare MSNBC and Fox, likening the former network to the Democratic Party’s version of Fox. This is insane. MSNBC is certainly liberal, no one denies that. But it’s not a propaganda network. If Joe Biden were facing four criminal convictions, would MSNBC still be in his corner? Not on your life. Its hosts would be outraged, and they would be leading the charge to find someone new.
Ditto the Democratic Party. I remember in 2016 people used to say, “Who is the Trump of the left?” There was and is no Trump of the left. Liberal voters would never elevate a corrupt, self-centered, lying, Putin-loving fascist to a county sheriff’s position, let alone the presidency. And high-ranking Democratic politicians would have jumped ship on such a figure long ago. The Democratic Party, for sure, has its faults. But it is not an authoritarian cult. The Republican Party is.
And Fox is the main information (or, if you prefer, disinformation) conduit between the cult’s leader and its Kool-Aid drinkers. It’s far from the only source of such sycophancy these days, which is an important thing for liberals to remember. As we learned from the materials released in the Dominion lawsuit, Fox execs like CEO Suzanne Scott and Murdoch himself are constantly worried that they’re going to lose audience share to One America and Newsmax, both of which are even more Volkischer Beobachter than Fox is. Then there are all the Substackers and podcasters and self-promoters who draw huge audiences promoting the same lies. Then there’s right-wing talk radio and Christian radio. And don’t forget much of local news, owned now by right-wing parent companies that force “fair and balanced” scripts on gullible—or culpable—local anchors.
It’s a massive galaxy of lies, bigotry, and hate. And while I’ve said this before, it’s worth repeating: The right-wing media in the United States is now more powerful, and more able to set the national agenda, than the mainstream media. Twenty years ago, the mainstream media was the behemoth, and the right-wing media was this smallish cankerous growth off to the side. Today? I’d say they’re about equal in size; if the mainstream media are still a bit larger, the right-wing media have the advantage of being driven by a specific political agenda in a way the mainstream press is not. That monomaniacal agenda comes through louder and clearer than the straight story: promote Republicans, destroy Democrats, and above all else, hail Trump.
They think of everything, I’ll give them that. I remember back in 1992 when the New York Post suddenly started running a few positive articles about Al Sharpton. The paper had dissed Sharpton for years. But lo and behold, it began seeing a new side to the Rev. Why would this have been?
Because he was running for Senate in the Democratic primary against Bobby Abrams, who was seen at the time as having an excellent shot at defeating GOP incumbent Alfonse D’Amato, who was Rupert’s all-time favorite. The more votes Sharpton could steal away from Abrams in the primary, the more he might weaken him for the general election. So, the Post promoted his candidacy for a while. I remember how the great journalists Wayne Barrett and Tom Robbins used to chuckle with me about it. I’m sure Al had a chuckle too. But you had to be a real connoisseur of Murdochian Kremlinology to notice this. (D’Amato edged out Abrams, by the way, because Abrams made the error of calling Alfonse a “fascist,” which he cleverly converted into an ethnic slur.)
Think the M.O. has changed? Check out Fox’s coverage of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s fawning. On July 24, Media Matters noted that since his announcement of candidacy on April 19, RFK Jr. had appeared at least 10 times on Fox’s weekday broadcasts, which was more than Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie. Sean Hannity gave him a town-hall event, something he hasn’t done for most of the GOP candidates.
So, enjoy this little feud if you want to. But remember: Fox only cares about two things. Ratings come first, always. Then comes crushing liberalism. The two have gone hand in hand since they turned on the lights back in 1996. Trump has been good for ratings. His liberal-crushing record is mixed at best. But as long as the base stays with him—the base that Fox has done more to create and inflame than any other entity in the country has, by the way—Fox will too. | US Federal Elections |
An affiliate of the Florida Chamber of Commerce indirectly provided the funding for a secretive political committee that didn’t disclose its donors and spent more than $160,000 on mail ads in a competitive Central Florida state Senate race in 2020, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records released this week.
The revelation was disclosed in records sent by FDLE to 18th Circuit State Attorney Phil Archer’s office, which declined to file charges against anyone involved in running Floridians for Equality and Justice, a committee covertly run by a Republican political operative whose name didn’t appear on any of the group’s publicly disclosed filings.
The FDLE was investigating the group alongside its ongoing probe into Florida’s “ghost candidate” scandal, which has led to criminal charges against five people, including two independent candidates who filed to run in competitive state Senate races in 2020 but did not campaign for the seats.
Those candidates include Jestine Iannotti, who filed to run in Central Florida’s Senate District 9, the same district targeted by Floridians for Equality and Justice’s ads.
A spokesperson for the Florida Chamber could not be reached for comment Monday about the affiliated group’s contribution.
Archer cited “legal impediments,” in a press release explaining his decision not to pursue charges against Floridians for Equality and Justice, though he added that “our campaign laws should mandate complete transparency and accountability” and urged lawmakers to address the issue.
“State regulators and the public should be able to identify the movement of every dollar influencing any aspect of our elections,” Archer said, according to the press release. “That disclosure must come within days of the donation, not weeks or months after the election has concluded.”
Central Florida voters inundated by the group’s ads waited more than two years to learn where Floridians for Equality and Justice received its funding. Instead of itemizing its contributions, the committee reported only a “starting balance” of $249,925 when it was established in July 2020.
It spent more than $160,000 on ads attacking Democrat Patricia Sigman, the frontrunner for the party’s nomination in Senate District 9, and urging voters to cast ballots for one of her primary opponents, Rick Ashby. Sigman won the primary but lost in the general election to Republican Jason Brodeur, who was backed by the Florida Chamber and was working as the Seminole County Chamber’s CEO at the time of the election.
The newly released records show the money behind the Floridians for Equality and Justice ads came indirectly from a nonprofit associated with the Florida Chamber, which transferred $1 million on July 8, 2020, to Foundation for a Safe Environment, run by consultant Stafford Jones. The next day, Foundation for a Safe Environment transferred $250,000 to the bank account for Floridians for Equality and Justice, a nonprofit also run by Jones.
Later that month, Jones established a political committee with the same name, reporting the “starting balance” instead of listing individual contributions. His son’s name appeared on the committee documents.
Though political committees are typically required to report their contributions and expenditures, Archer’s office determined Floridians for Equality and Justice was not required to report its transactions outside of the time period when the committee was active, starting in late July.
However, Chief Assistant State Attorney Stacey Straub Salmons wrote that “the creative formation and management of political committees in this state creates a loophole” that allows operatives to bypass campaign finance laws.
“This practice divests our electorate of the opportunity to be well-informed and it creates an environment where special interests are permitted to cloak, in secrecy, their financial contributions to support or oppose candidates and issues in our Florida elections,” Straub Salmons wrote. “Floridians deserve to know whether special interests are at play in their elections. Floridians deserve better.”
FDLE investigators also noted that Floridians for Equality and Justice’s transaction records didn’t show any expenditures related to ‘social welfare,’” a requirement by the Internal Revenue Service to retain its status as a 501(c)4 tax-exempt organization. Instead, the law enforcement agency noted, “the vast majority of expenditures in 2020 were for a political purpose to influence the State Senate District 9 primary race.”
Reached on Monday, Jones said the organization “engaged nearly 100% in issue education, another legitimate function and quite common purpose” of 501(c)4 nonprofits. The ads described Sigman, the frontrunner, as the party establishment’s favorite and urged voters to back “justice warrior” Rick Ashby instead.
FDLE probe solves money mystery
Publicly available records for Floridians for Equality and Justice show the organization paid $163,500 to an entity called Victory Blue Group. The FDLE reports show that an LLC called Victory Blue used Jones’ personal bank account and Floridians for Equality and Justice transferred $163,500 to that account in four installments in late July and early August.
Though Jones controlled Floridians for Equality and Justice, no publicly available documents linked him to the group. The committee submitted documents to the Florida Division of Elections that listed the name Stephen Jones, who the Orlando Sentinel identified in a 2021 report as Stafford Jones’ son.
FDLE determined the younger Jones was paid about $1,400 via CashApp in several transactions during July and August 2020.
The committee listed a Miami UPS store box as its main address. The FDLE investigation found that a friend of an intern of attorney Juan-Carlos Planas set up the box in her name. The friend told investigators she never checked the box but was paid $200 by Planas to renew its lease in December 2020.
Planas, a former Republican member of the Florida House, told the Sentinel Monday he arranged to lease the box as a “favor” to Public Concepts, a Republican consulting firm he was working with at the time. Planas said he did not know how the firm intended to use the mailbox. The same firm printed the mailers promoting Ashby, the FDLE probe found.
Planas said Stafford Jones paid him to set up the box, along with other work he had done for Public Concepts. He said he didn’t question why Jones had paid him for that work because they both were working on campaigns for Republican state lawmakers.
The source of the funding for Floridians for Equality and Justice has been an ongoing mystery in state politics.
The Florida Elections Commission resolved a complaint in November 2021 that alleged several violations by the committee with a settlement agreement that included a $250 fine for breaking a law that involved information missing from one of its initial registration forms.
The settlement agreement said an apparent legal loophole allowed the group to avoid disclosing its donors because it began engaging in election-related activities far enough in advance of the August primary election that it did not have to report its finances to the state.
Former state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a South Florida Democrat, also filed a suit against the group in an attempt to force it to reveal its donors. She withdrew her complaint in December.
Brodeur, who won re-election last November, is a favorite of the Florida Chamber, receiving a perfect 100 out of 100 score from the organization on its 2021 and 2022 legislative report cards. The organization’s political committee contributed $36,000 to Brodeur’s committee during the 2020 election cycle.
The committee receives much of its funding from big business interests like Florida Power & Light, which was working with the consultants who funded ads backing the “ghost” candidates who ran for competitive state Senate seats in 2020.
Brodeur has supported legislation championed by FPL, including a proposal in 2021 that made solar facilities a permitted use of agricultural land. Brodeur sponsored that bill, which ultimately passed and was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Nobody working for FPL has been accused of wrongdoing and the utility’s executives have denied having any involvement in the scheme, though the toll of “media allegations” about its political activities was cited as a factor in CEO Eric Silagy’s decision to retire, announced last week.
Five people have been charged. One, former candidate Alex Rodriguez, has pleaded guilty to charges he took nearly $45,000 to enter a Miami race. The man accused of bribing Rodriguez, former lawmaker Frank Artiles, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
Another, former Seminole County GOP Chair Ben Paris, was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge that he caused his cousin’s name to appear falsely on Iannotti’s campaign finance reports. Paris was working for Brodeur as a vice president at the Seminole County Chamber at the time of the election.
[email protected] | US Political Corruption |
President Joe BidenSusan Walsh/APArizona's new Democratic attorney general dismissed a lawsuit seeking to block student-debt relief.It was filed by the former GOP attorney general in September.This lawsuit is separate from the two cases blocking the relief that are going to the Supreme Court.Arizona just dismissed one of the first conservative-backed lawsuits that sought to block President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness.At the end of August, Biden announced up to $20,000 in student-debt relief for federal borrowers making under $125,000 a year — and lawsuits followed shortly after. One of those lawsuits was filed on September 30 by Arizona's then-attorney general, Mark Brnovich, a Republican who argued canceling student debt is unfair and would harm the state by making it harder to recruit lawyers through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.It was the third lawsuit filed that attempted to block the relief, and on Friday, Arizona's new Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes dismissed the case. Mayes took office earlier this month, and she indicated that she would be reviewing whether to continue her predecessor's legal challenge to Biden's broad debt relief.Notably, this case was slower-moving than the other legal challenges to Biden's plan. Two other lawsuits succeeded in pausing the implementation of Biden's debt relief, and those cases are now headed to the Supreme Court, which will hear the oral arguments on February 28.One of the lawsuits was filed by six Republican-led states who sued because they argued the debt relief would hurt their states' tax revenues, along with that of student-loan company MOHELA. The other lawsuit was filed by two student-loan borrowers who sued because they did not qualify for the full $20,000 amount of relief, and the Supreme Court will weigh whether both of those cases have standing, and if it's legal for Biden to cancel student debt for millions of Americans.Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the potential partisan interests the federal judges have when they blocked the relief. For example, federal Texas Judge Mark Pittman — appointed by former President Donald Trump — ruled on the lawsuit filed by the two student-loan borrowers, and New York Rep. Mondaire Jones referenced conservative influences in December."How can a lone Trump-appointed judge in Texas, through a single opinion, overturn the Biden administration's meticulously planned executive order in all 50 states?" Jones wrote in an opinion piece.Republican lawmakers, and the plaintiffs in the case, have still continued to maintain that the broad relief Biden is proposing is an overstep of his authority using the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency. Republicans have argued relief at this scale should require Congressional approval, but Biden's administration has maintained confidence in their case — and that the Supreme Court should uphold the relief this year.Read the original article on Business Insider | US Federal Policies |
Presidential candidate and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy clapped back at Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a longtime vocal critic of former President Trump, after he said he would rather support "a number of Democrats" over Trump and Ramaswamy in the 2024 election.
"Turns out he's opposed to America-First itself, not just one man. Newsflash, Mitt: I didn't vote for you either, and I still call on your niece Ronna to resign," Ramaswamy told Fox News Digital in a statement Monday. Ronna McDaniel is chair of the Republican National Committee.
Ramaswamy's response comes after Romney said to CBS' Norah O'Donnell that he'd "be happy to support virtually any one of the Republicans" except Ramaswamy, and that a "number of the Democrats" would be an upgrade from Trump.
"Maybe not Vivek, but the others that are running would be acceptable to me, and I'd be happy to vote for them," Romney stated.
"I'd be happy to vote for a number of the Democrats, too. I mean, it would be an upgrade, in my opinion, from Donald Trump – and perhaps also from Joe Biden," he continued.
Romney's comments, which aired on CBS last month, went widely unnoticed until this week.
In an emailed statement Tuesday to Fox News Digital, a Trump spokesperson said, "Voters aren't going to take advice from a loser and quitter like Mittens."
Romney, a former presidential candidate, will not be running for re-election in 2024 and announced in September his retirement from the Senate.
"I have spent my last 25 years in public service of one kind or another. At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-eighties. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in," Romney said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital in September.
"We face critical challenges – mounting national debt, climate change, and the ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China. Neither President Biden nor former President Trump are leading their party to confront them," Romney said.
Trump called Romney's retirement "fantastic news" for America, Utah and the Republican Party on TruthSocial shortly after his announcement, NBC News reported at the time. Romney was one of the Republicans who voted to impeach the former president twice.
Romney's term ends in January 2025.
He was first elected to the Senate from Utah in 2018, winning the GOP primary in a landslide.
But his willingness to reach across the aisle and criticize other national Republicans has caused friction with the Utah GOP. Last month, more than 60 GOP Utah state lawmakers endorsed Utah state House Speaker Brad Wilson to mount a primary challenge against Romney.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Romney's office and the RNC for comment. | US Federal Elections |
Win McNamee/Getty Images
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Georgia voters cast their ballots in a U.S. Senate runoff election on Dec. 6, 2022, in Norcross, Ga.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Georgia voters cast their ballots in a U.S. Senate runoff election on Dec. 6, 2022, in Norcross, Ga.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
ATLANTA — Georgia Republican lawmakers approved a measure last week that would outlaw local officials from seeking almost all third-party funding to help cover the costs of running elections.
GOP-led Arkansas recently enacted a similar ban on outside money in elections.
The bills are the latest in a series of measures passed by Republicans at the state level to crack down on outside funding in elections. Their efforts have been fueled in part by false claims about the 2020 election and come as election officials across the country complain about persistent funding needs.
Georgia's Senate Bill 222 would make it a felony for local election workers or government officials to solicit or accept money to cover the cost of running elections from any source other than the state or federal government.
In 2021, Georgia lawmakers passed a sweeping 98-page voting overhaul that banned county elections boards from directly receiving outside funding, instead requiring any grant money to be requested and disbursed by county governments.
But after majority-Black, Democratic-heavy DeKalb County in metro Atlanta received a $2 million grant in early 2023 that it then allocated to its elections office, some conservative groups pressured the General Assembly to close this loophole and make that method illegal, too. The legislation SB 222 is now at the governor's desk.
Some Republicans have argued, without evidence, that money given to elections offices has improperly influenced electoral outcomes. In Georgia and around the country in 2020, Democratic- and Republican-leaning counties alike received millions in nonprofit grants to help administer elections during the pandemic, with more of the money going to counties that had more voters. Many conservatives complained that much of the money came from the founder of Facebook and his wife in the form of donations to the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, and helped facilitate mail voting. Soon after that election, GOP-led states began banning outside funding.
"Schemes to privatize our elections have no place in Georgia or anywhere else and undermine the confidence of voters who have doubts about the legitimacy and accuracy of our elections and whether they were conducted with fairness and honesty," Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official who's now with the Election Transparency Initiative, said in a statement about the new Georgia bill.
Democrats and voting rights groups have attacked the move as short-sighted and likely increasing the financial burden on local elections offices that have seen an exodus of staffing after recent grueling election cycles.
"Election grants are not the problem, there's simply no evidence of it," Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said during debate on the bill. "The real problem is cutting off lifelines to our chronically underfunded elections offices."
DeKalb County officials said the $2 million grant money would go toward things like upgrading office facilities. There are no major elections scheduled in Georgia in 2023.
Earlier versions of SB 222 would have sought to force DeKalb County to return that funding to the nonprofit U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, but that language was removed after Democratic lawmakers said that making the grant retroactively illegal would have violated the Constitution.
The ban does not apply to groups such as churches that donate locations to serve as polling places, "services provided by individuals without remuneration" or goods with a value of less than $500.
"Our election infrastructure is chronically underfunded"
Nearly half of U.S. states have enacted some limit on private funding in elections since the 2020 cycle, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The measures typically prevent local governments and election offices from seeking any third-party funding, though some states do set out parameters for uniform distribution of funds given to the state government.
Last month, Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed SB255, which further amends that state's outside funding restriction to more explicitly prevent local governments from using such funding.
In a U.S. Senate hearing last week, Democratic New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver told lawmakers of dire staffing shortages because of threats against election workers, and highlighted election offices' needs for more resources to upgrade things like equipment and technology.
"Sufficient funding for election administration, however, remains an obstacle for many election offices across the country," she said. "The federal government can help states and their election administrators by providing consistent, robust funding streams."
That echoed a call from the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the group Issue One in a recent report laying out policy recommendations for the 2024 elections.
"Nearly all the recommendations in this report connect to the persistent lack of sufficient federal funding for local and state election administration," the authors wrote. "Our election infrastructure is chronically underfunded, forcing creative election officials to scramble every year to run safe, smooth, and secure elections."
The requests for more money to fund elections is a bipartisan issue, too. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, asked state budget writers for more money to cover the cost of an absentee ballot tracking service, data for polling place check-in tablets and $4 million to replace heavy battery backup power supplies for voting machines.
"The current [backup] is a lead-based battery, it's robust, it also weighs 80 pounds," Raffensperger said in a budget hearing earlier this year. "Our average poll worker has an age of over 65 years old, it's a burden."
Georgia lawmakers declined to add the $4 million to replace the equipment and many of Raffensperger's other requests in either budget approved this legislative session. | US Federal Policies |
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