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US Monthly Headline News April 2023 - Page 3
Story by Gideon Rubin

President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is seeking reelection drew an almost immediate reaction from Donald Trump, who released a video Tuesday morning riddled with factual errors, according to an analysis in The Washington Post.

Biden’s announcement, released in a video isn’t perfect from a fact-checking standpoint, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reports, noting that his assertion that “MAGA Republicans” want to cut social security doesn’t square with the current position GOP leaders hold. Trump’s reaction to Biden’s announcement, which he released in a video on his Truth Social website, features “one misleading attack after another,” Kessler writes.

Some of Trump’s false claims include his statement that “You could take the five worst presidents in American history, and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our nation in just a few short years. Not even close,” is described by Kessler as “rhetorical overkill.”
Story by Ny MaGee

*A Texas man has reportedly been sentenced to 70 years in prison for spitting at police officers during a 2022 arrest. The incident occurred last May when Larry Pearson, 36, was arrested on domestic violence charges after allegedly repeatedly striking a woman in the face and leaving her with "multiple visible injuries," according to EverythingLubbock.com.

Pearson allegedly threw a wild tantrum when Lubbock police refused to arrest the victim. While detained in the police cruiser, he reportedly kicked the door and spat at two cops who demanded he stops. Pearson continued to spit at officers once at the Lubbock County Detention Center. Pearson, who had prior convictions, was ultimately found guilty of two counts of harassment of a public servant.
Story by Jolie McCullough

Daniel Perry, whom Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged to pardon for the murder of an Austin protester, often made racist comments and regularly made clear his desire to kill protesters in the months leading up to Garrett Foster’s death, according to social media posts and texts contained in newly unsealed court documents. On May 29, 2020, days after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer prompted nationwide protests, Perry sent a text message saying, “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

Two days later, according to the records, Perry said in a Facebook message that when he is in Dallas, “no protestors go near me or my car.” “Can you catch me a negro daddy,” the other man replied. “That is what I am hoping,” Perry said. In June, Perry sent text messages from an unknown area detailing bars closing and “the blacks … gathering up in a group I think something is about to happen.” “I wonder if they will let my cut the ears off of people who’s decided to commit suicide by me,” he added. The court records, released Thursday, contain evidence pulled from Perry’s phone records and social media accounts. Prosecutors had filed the sealed 82-page document in March, but much of it was not brought before jurors. Information depicting a defendant’s character is often not allowed to be introduced while a jury weighs guilt versus innocence, but becomes relevant in a sentencing hearing.
Story by Sam Courtney-Guy

A Republican politician has said he wants to ‘erase’ the LGBTQ+ community in a tirade accusing it of ‘targeting children’. Randy Fine, a lawmaker for the state of Florida, is spearheading a bill which activists say is a thinly-veiled crackdown on drag shows and pride events. Fine, 48, insists his bill is for ‘the protection of children’ from ‘adult live performances’, pointing out that it doesn’t explicitly mention drag.

The Democrats’ Senator Tina Polsky argues the bill is ‘purposely vague’ in order to create an ‘administrative nightmare’ in which public venues are too afraid to host performances featuring drag artists. Urging his colleagues to back the bill Wednesday, Fine doubled down on his claim that the new law isn’t aimed at LGBTQ+ people while at the same time suggesting they are ‘determined to push’ sexualised performances on kids.
Story by Alex Henderson

Countless pundits, discussing the 2024 presidential election and former President Donald Trump’s legal problems, have argued that the United States finds itself in "uncharted territory." Never before in the U.S. history has a former president been indicted on 34 criminal counts, arrested and arraigned while running for president again and facing multiple criminal and civil investigations.

The 34-count prosecution from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. is separate from the two federal criminal investigations that Trump is facing from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith and the state criminal investigation being conducted by Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis. Meanwhile, New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been conducting a civil probe of the Trump Organization's financial activities.

In an opinion column published by MSNBC's website on April 14, legal analyst Jordan Rubin zeros in on one aspect of Smith's investigation of Trump and the January 6, 2021 insurrection: wire fraud.
Story by Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com

Pentagon files allegedly leaked by Jack Teixeira include a deeply troubling report about China's hypersonic missile program, and the revelation that a new missile believed to be capable of evading U.S. defenses has been successfully tested. Teixeira, 21, was arrested on Thursday at his home in Massachusetts. He is believed to have shared hundreds of classified documents with friends on a Discord chat room between the fall and mid March.

Among them was a February 28 top-secret report from the Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence directorate, The Washington Post reported. They reported that three days previously, on February 25, China had successfully tested a new missile, named DF-27 - a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, in the Dongfeng series. All Dongfeng-series missiles are capable of delivering nuclear warheads. The missile 'possesses a high probability of penetrating US' ballistic missile defenses, the report said.
Former Rep. Cheney criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her tweets defending the alleged leaker of hundreds of pages of classified U.S. intelligence.
By Rose Horowitch

Former Rep. Liz Cheney said Thursday that GOP firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene should not have a security clearance after Greene defended the Air National Guardsman suspected of leaking a trove of classified documents.

Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming who has come out against the Trump-aligned wing of the party, said Greene's comments made clear that she "cannot be trusted" with national security information.
Story by Gideon Rubin

Arkansas’ top law enforcement official has advanced new measures that from a civil rights standpoint would bring a large swath of a state with a history of discrimination back to the future. Attorney General Tim Griffin earlier this week filed four briefs that aim to repeal federal desegregation supervision that would effectively exempt four South Arkansas school districts from state laws preventing students from enrolling in schools outside their home districts, The Arkansas Times reports.

The measure dovetails with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Arkansas LEARNS Act, an educational overhaul package that promotes vouchers. Proponents of the measure say it will opportunities for low-income families, but critics say it will undermine public education. Griffin’s filings aim to end federal desegregation supervision in Camden Fairview, Hope, Lafayette County and Junction City districts.
Opinion by Jarvis DeBerry

Few people are looking better right now than Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, one of two Black Democratic legislators who were reinstated to the state House days after Republican colleagues expelled him for standing with residents demanding gun control legislation. And few people are looking worse than those Tennessee Republicans who in their attempt to heap shame upon two young Black men brought shame upon themselves. Those Republicans also lost the ground they were trying to defend. Tuesday, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order strengthening background checks in the state.
Story by Igor Derysh

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has sought a wide range of documents related to former President Donald Trump's fundraising after the 2020 election to determine whether he scammed supporters for donations, eight sources told The Washington Post.

Smith's team investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack sent subpoenas in recent weeks to Trump advisers, former campaign aides, Republican operatives and other consultants involved in the 2020 campaign, according to the report. Some of the people have also been interviewed before a grand jury in D.C. The probe is focused on Trump's fundraising after the election until he left office on Jan. 20, 2021, when he raised millions by pushing election lies.
Story by Brad Reed

Aleaked audio recording obtained by The Tennessee Holler reveals furious infighting among Tennessee Republicans as they took criticism for the ouster of Black Democratic State Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson.

The audio begins with Tennessee State Rep. Jason Zachary ripping into Democrats for accusing him of being a racist, while also calling out fellow State Rep. Jody Barrett for apparently flip-flopping on voting to expel Democratic State Rep. Gloria Johnson, the one white Democrat who was targeted for expulsion.

"You straight-up came to me and said you were 100 percent where I was!" Zachary charged to Barrett. "And you went on the House floor and you did the opposite. Man, you hung us out to dry!"

Barrett, however, shot back and argued that the resolution to expel Johnson was "poorly drafted" and he said he could not support something that "was going to be in the annals of history as being wrong."
Story by MacKenzie Sigalos

In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins confirmed that an arrest has been made in the April 4 fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee. Officials named Nima Momeni — a tech entrepreneur in the Bay Area — as the suspect. Authorities also said that Momeni knew the victim, though they would not comment on the motive. They also indicated that the investigation was ongoing.

Momeni will be arraigned on Friday, and prosecutors said that they would be filing a motion to detain him without bail. Police made the arrest earlier on Thursday in Emeryville, California, a suburb 15 minutes outside San Francisco. Jail records say that the 38-year-old Momeni was booked on suspicion of murder at 9:19 a.m. News of the arrest was first reported by Mission Local, a local San Francisco news publication.
Opinion by Tommy Christopher

Fox News host Tucker Carlson fired off a rant about expelled-then-reinstated Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson that was so racist, his critics declared it “Shockingly racist even for Tucker Carlson” — a mighty big claim.

Rep. Pearson is the Black lawmaker whom the Tennessee House voted to expel along with Rep. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson over a protest calling for gun reform in the wake of the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School that killed six people. They spared Gloria Johnson, a 60-year-old white woman who participated in the protest. That disparity has been flagged by the Tennessee Three and others as a racist double standard.

On Wednesday, Pearson was reinstated to the legislature, days after Jones, too, was reinstated. Also Wednesday, conservatives continued a collective freakout over the fact that Jones used to not have an afro, and now he has an afro, and he was less militant seven years ago in a student council campaign video than he is now.
Story by Giulia Carbonaro

After being called out by California Governor Gavin Newsom for apparently supporting legal child marriage for kids as young as 12, Missouri Republican Mike Moon doubled down on his controversial stance—at least when it comes to minors getting married to other minors.

In a tweet responding to Newsom's accusations that he supported marrying off 12-year-old kids to adults, Moon said: "To be clear, I did not advocate for minors to be married off to adults. Check out my video below to learn the truth about this issue. Keep your California politics out of Missouri. Democrats will say whatever they can to make sure they can keep mutilating children."
Story by Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY

Nearly 26 inches of rain brought Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to a screeching halt Thursday, swamping cars on highways, shutting down the city's airport and closing schools.

The sheer magnitude of the tsunami from the skies took nearly everyone by surprise. "Spotty flooding is expected," the city posted in an update on its website early Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service expected up to six inches of rain but ultimately at least one location at the airport saw four times that.

If the preliminary report of 25.91 inches measured at a station at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport is verified, it would break the state's 24-hour rain record by 2.63 inches. Much of Wednesday's rain at a couple of weather stations – up to 20 inches – fell within six hours, reported weather service meteorologist Pablo Santos. Such an extreme rain amount has only a 1 in 1000 chance of occurring in Fort Lauderdale in any given year, Santos said.
Marjorie Taylor Greene always side with coup plotters, traitors, insurrectionist, seditionist and Putin instead of America

Story by Olafimihan Oshin

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) slammed Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over her comments defending Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in leaking Pentagon files. “McCarthy’s top lieutenant is siding with one of the biggest traitors America has seen,” Swalwell wrote in a tweet on Thursday.

“I’m sorry, Marge, being white, male, and Christian is not license to betray your country and put the lives of thousands at risk,” he added. “But this wouldn’t be the first time she sided with traitors.” Swalwell’s remarks come in response to Greene’s own comments on the arrest of Teixeira.  “Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime,” Greene wrote in a Twitter post. “Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
By Ross Kerber and Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - The FBI on Thursday arrested Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the U.S. Air National Guard, over the leaks online of classified documents that embarrassed Washington with allies around the world.

Federal agents in an armored car and military gear swooped in on Teixeira, dressed in gym shorts, a T-shirt and trainers, at his home in Dighton, Massachusetts, a mostly wooded town of 8,000 about 50 miles (80 km) south of Boston.

The arrest comes a week after the leaks first became widely known, setting Washington on edge about the damage they may have caused. The episode embarrassed the U.S. by revealing its spying on allies and purported Ukrainian military vulnerabilities.
Story by Evan Perez

Amember of the Massachusetts Air National Guard was arrested by the FBI on Thursday in connection with the leaking of classified documents that have been posted online, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday.

The arrest of Jack Teixeira, 21, comes following a fast-moving search by the US government for the identity of the leaker who posted classified documents to a social media platform popular with video gamers.

Teixeira was arrested in Massachusetts without incident, Garland said, and will be arraigned in federal court there. “This investigation is ongoing. We will share more information at the appropriate time,” the attorney general said, declining to answer questions.
Story by Meaghan Ellis

MSNBC’s Alex Wagner recently aired bombshell recordings that featured Rudy Giuliani and a former campaign official for then-President Donald Trump admitting to Fox News that they lacked substantial evidence to support all of their claims of widespread voter fraud.

According to Mediaite, the damning recordings were presented to a judge as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative news network. According to Mediaite, the damning recordings were presented to a judge as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the conservative news network.
Story by kvlamis@insider.com (Kelsey Vlamis)

Missouri State Sen. Mike Moon defended child marriage on Tuesday, touting the apparently successful marriage of people he knows who got married when they were 12. The Republican made the comments during a debate on a bill he introduced that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the state.

Video of the exchange showed Democratic state Rep. Peter Meredith confronting Moon over past comments he made about parents' rights to make decisions concerning their own children. "You voted 'no' on making it illegal for kids to be married to adults at the age of 12 if their parents consented to it," Meredith told Moon. "You said actually that should be the law because it's the parents' right and the kid's right to decide what's best for them. To be raped by an adult."
Story by jepstein@insider.com (Jake Epstein)

Secret documents containing US intelligence appear to have been first posted to a gamer forum in what has become the worst Pentagon leak in years, but it's not the first time highly sensitive and classified documents have ended up in these kinds of chatrooms.

The trove of documents containing highly sensitive military and security information about US allies and adversaries recently circulated on social media platforms and are now the focus of a federal investigation.

It is still not immediately clear who leaked the dozens of documents and when they did, but many of the documents appear to be from late February or early March. Within the first few days of March, at least a few documents were posted to a Discord server dedicated to the "Minecraft" video game, according to a Bellingcat investigation. Discord is a messaging platform where users can send photographs, videos, audio, and text to various chatrooms.
Story by Josephine Harvey

Tucker Carlson went on an overtly racist tirade against a Tennessee state lawmaker on Wednesday night, suggesting Democratic Rep. Justin Pearson speaks like a “sharecropper” and got into college only because he’s Black.

Pearson is one of two Black lawmakers recently expelled from the state legislature by the GOP supermajority for joining protesters who chanted in the House chamber in support of gun control following a school shooting that left six people dead in Nashville last month. Pearson was reinstated Wednesday by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis, and state Rep. Justin Jones was reinstated Monday by Nashville’s Metro Council.

In a Fox News segment attacking Pearson and other Democrats for what he called “mimicking civil rights leaders,” Carlson said Pearson had changed his demeanor over the years from that of a “crypto white kid” into “the “modern incarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. himself.”
BY STEPHEN NEUKAM

Elon Musk and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called for NPR to be defunded after the outlet announced it would no longer use Twitter due to the social media platform slapping it with a “government-funded media” label. “Defund @NPR,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday, after sharing an email that said the media outlet was no longer using Twitter.

Boebert responded to the Musk Tweet by saying “I’ve been saying that for quite some time! Let’s get it done!” NPR said it decided to stop using the platform because the “government-funded media” label undermined public trust and its editorial independence. Twitter had initially labelled NPR’s account as “state-affiliated” media, but switched to the government-funded categorization over the weekend, which it also applied to outlets including the BBC, PBS and Voice of America.
Story by Gideon Rubin • 1h ago

A Florida Republican on Wednesday doubled down on a controversial anti-drag bill. State Rep. Randy Fine, a proponent of SB 1438, the so-called “Protection of Children Act” that would ban anyone under 18 years of age from attending a drag show, argued during a debate on the House floor that "if it means erasing a community, because you have to target children, then damn right we outta do it." Fine didn’t identify the community he supports “erasing,” but SB 1438 targets Florida’s LGBTQ community, The New Republic reports.
Story by LGBTQNation

AWisconsin elementary school teacher has been placed on leave after she revealed on social media that administrators canceled a first-grade performance of Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton’s song “Rainbowland” because the district considers rainbows “controversial.” When Melissa Tempel, a first-grade teacher at Heyer Elementary School in Waukesha, approached her classroom last week, district officials were waiting at the door to stop and inform her that she wouldn’t be allowed to teach, The New Republic reported.
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Dept. of Justice investigators for Special Counsel Jack Smith have been asking witnesses if Donald Trump showed off a map that contains sensitive national security information. One noted legal expert says it could mean DOJ might be considering charges against the ex-president under the Espionage Act.

“The nature of the map and the information it contained is not clear,” The New York Times reports. “One person briefed on the matter said investigators have asked about Mr. Trump showing the map while aboard a plane. Another said that, based on the questions they were asking, investigators appeared to believe that Mr. Trump showed the map to at least one adviser after leaving office.”

“A third person with knowledge of the investigation said the map might also have been shown to a journalist writing a book. The Washington Post has previously reported that investigators have asked about Mr. Trump showing classified material, including maps, to political donors.”
Story by Rebecca Shabad and Daniel Barnes

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court on Wednesday against his former lawyer Michael Cohen — who has emerged as a key witness in the criminal case against the former president — seeking more than $500 million in damages for alleged "breaches of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, conversion, and breaches of contract." Cohen was the key witness to testify last month before a Manhattan grand jury, which then approved a 34-count indictment against Trump. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.

The complaint accuses Cohen of violating his attorney-client relationship with Trump by publicly disclosing information about the former president and “spreading falsehoods about [Trump], likely to be embarrassing or detrimental, and partook in other misconduct in violation of New York Rules of Professional Conduct.”

The former president has “suffered vast reputational harm as a direct result of Defendant’s breaches,” Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito wrote in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Story by Heather Digby Parton

The last few years have seen a new round of vigilante killings in America, the likes of which we haven't seen since the civil rights movement. And under a new interpretation of the meaning of self-defense, many are getting away with it.

Recall a few years back when an armed man named George Zimmerman down in Florida thought a young Black kid named Trayvon Martin looked suspicious so he jumped him and when the startled teenager fought back, Zimmerman shot and killed the boy. He said he felt threatened and was only defending himself. The jury acquitted him.

More recently, a young white man named Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges in Kenosha, Wisconsin when he waded into a protest armed with an AR-15 and killed two unarmed men, wounding a third. Rittenhouse may have been the one armed with a semi-automatic rifle but he said he felt threatened by the protesters so he opened fire. The jury found that to be a reasonable reaction.
Has Tim Scott lost his mind

Opinion by Ed Kilgore

It’s not easy being a Black Republican senator from the U.S.’s all-time career-champion jurisdiction for white racism, South Carolina. But Tim Scott has the additional burden of running for president in a national Republican Party where the belief that white Christians are now prime victims of systemic discrimination is virtually an article of faith.

By undertaking the “soft launch” of announcing a presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday, Scott has signaled that he’s serious about a 2024 run. His racial identity and up-from-poverty biography are unavoidably central to his ability to distinguish himself from all of the other MAGA-tinged loud-and-proud conservatives already in or considering the race. And in the proto-stump-speech he has used in Iowa and elsewhere this year, Scott has made his personal story proof positive that the U.S. is now free of conservative white racism while accusing Joe Biden and “the radical left” of seeking to subjugate Black people via bad “government schools” (Scott is a big-time private-school-voucher proponent), high crime, inflation, and so on.
Story by Alex Henderson

The politician who far-right Florida governor Ron DeSantis is typically compared to the most is a mentor and past ally: former President Donald Trump. These days, Trump is a scathing critic of DeSantis, attacking him as "Meatball Ron" and "Ron DeSanctimonious."

But back in 2019 and 2020, Trump and DeSantis were allies — and DeSantis proclaimed his devotion to the MAGA movement and Trump's "America First" ideology. Although DeSantis has yet to formally announce a presidential run, Trump obviously expects to be competing with him for the Republican nomination in 2024. In an article published by the Daily Beast on April 12, journalist Jake Lahut compares the 44-year-old Florida governor to another controversial politician: the late President Richard Nixon.
In America Governors do not decide who is on the board of a company, in Florida and 3rd world countries it may work that way but not America.

Story by ggoodwin@businessinsider.com (Grace Eliza Goodwin,Kimberly Leonard)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' hand-picked board overseeing Walt Disney World is trying to claw back "superior authority" after the previous board hamstrung its power, according to a new proposal. The action from the board is the latest move in the closely watched power struggle over who controls Disney's land.

The DeSantis-Disney feud began last year, after Disney executives publicly opposed the Parental Rights in Education Act, the legislation LGBTQ rights groups and Democrats have derided as "Don't Say Gay," because it limits classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation. DeSantis responded by signing a new law that allowed him to appoint board members to oversee Disney's land.
Opinion by Adam Serwer

When the right-wing billionaire Elon Musk wanted a journalist to spread the word about supposed left-wing censorship under Twitter’s previous ownership, he went to Matt Taibbi. But last week, Twitter began to throttle traffic to the newsletter platform Substack, where Taibbi does most of his writing, and apparently began hiding Taibbi’s tweets in Twitter's search results. Musk’s chosen conduit for exposing what he described as past Twitter’s censorship was now being censored by Musk’s Twitter. Although Musk has insisted the temporary throttling of Substack was a mistake, Taibbi claimed that it was in response to a “dispute” over the company’s new Twitter-like service.

Blocking access to a competitor may seem, well, at odds with the “free-speech absolutism” that Musk has proclaimed and that admirers like Taibbi have praised. As the reporter Mike Masnick writes, the above behavior clearly falls into what Musk fans described as censorship under Twitter’s previous ownership. But it’s consistent with what more perceptive observers noted about Musk as he was considering buying the network: The mogul’s treatment of union organizers and whistleblowers suggested that “free-speech absolutism” was mostly code for a high tolerance for bigotry toward particular groups, a smoke screen that obscured an obvious hostility toward any speech that threatened his ability to make money.
Story by Samantha Benitz

Fox News allegedly has never-before-heard recordings of Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies admitting there was no proof of voter fraud in the 2020 election, an ex-employee who is now suing the media giant claimed in court docs.

Abby Grossberg worked as a producer for Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson during her tenure, having since lost her job after filing a lawsuit alleging she was pressured into giving misleading testimony about the network's coverage of election fraud theories. She later filed new allegations in Delaware and New York on March 20, claiming Fox News fostered a workplace culture of sexual harassment and misogyny.
Story by Brad Reed

Ajudge on Wednesday said that he would appoint a special master tasked with determining whether Fox News withheld crucial evidence in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.

CNN reports that Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis on Wednesday repeatedly expressed "exasperation and frustration" with Fox News' attorneys while lawyers representing Dominion delivered a presentation alleging that they did not receive all of the information they should have during the discovery process.

"I am very concerned... that there have been misrepresentations to the court," Davis said. "This is very serious."
Story by Gideon Rubin

The expulsion of two Tennessee House of Representatives last over a gun violence protest on the House floor last week showcased what most assumed to be part of America’s troubled past. But far from being an outlier, the case that shocked the conscience of those who care about democracy around the world is part of a growing trend, according to a report that aired Tuesday night on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes.

Guest host Ali Velshi cited calls to impeach newly elected Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz among several examples of far-right groups with autocratic tendencies flexing their growing political muscle in state government throughout the country. “There's no other way to put it. Authoritarianism is ascendant in the Republican Party and state legislatures are leading that charge,” Velshi said.

Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones, who was reinstated Monday after being expelled last week over the gun violence protest, issued a warning before his colleagues voted to oust him. “It will signal to the nation that if it could happen here in Tennessee, it's coming to your state next and that is why the nation is watching us, what we do here,” he said. It may already be happening in a statehouse near you.
Story by Jessica Washington

It’s no secret that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a contentious relationship with Black Americans. And the Republican Governor certainly didn’t help his case when he went on a tirade against African American studies. But some of his more public moves aside, it’s what he’s done to voting rights in the state that has got Black Floridians on edge.

Since entering office, DeSantis has waged an unprecedented attack on Black voters and Black political power in Florida.The accusations against DeSantis include allegations that he gerrymandered Black voting power into oblivion and pushed through voting restrictions in an attempt to scare and confuse Black voters into staying home.

Let’s start with his gerrymandering strategy. We now have ample reporting from ProPublica and The Guardian that DeSantis was deeply involved in redrawing the new congressional district maps last year. According to reporting from The Guardian, DeSantis’s new map not only heavily favored Republicans, but it also cut the number of districts where Black voters had a chance to elect a candidate in half.
David Folkenflik

NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter's decision to first label the network "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries. The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong.

Twitter then revised its label on NPR's account to "government-funded media." The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. By going silent on Twitter, NPR's chief executive says the network is protecting its credibility and its ability to produce journalism without "a shadow of negativity."
Story by Brad Reed

Newly revealed text messages sent by police in Antioch, California show that officers for years engaged in racist conduct and celebrated their own brutality while facing no pushback at all from superiors. Among other things, the Mercury News reports, officers in Antioch made racist jokes about offering a "prime rib dinner" to anyone who shot Mayor Lamar Thorpe with projectors often used on protesters.

Other messages show officers boasting about violence they inflicted on others while at times lamenting they didn't go further in making alleged perpetrators suffer. One particularly egregious text sent by Antioch Officer Eric Rombough lamented that the injuries he inflicted on a suspect wouldn't be as readily visible as he had hoped.
Story by Brad Reed

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Wednesday roasted Republicans in the House of Representatives who have been historically unproductive in passing any kind of legislative agenda. In contrast to the 1990s majority led by Newt Gingrich -- which passed tax cuts, welfare reform, and other key priorities in its first 100 days -- the Republican Party under House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has so far passed nothing of substance.

"Think about this: They ran saying the Democrats were only focused on marginal issues, that they needed to care about inflation, they needed to care about immigration, they needed to care about crime," he said. "And yet, you look at the clown show that you put on, they're going and they're celebrating convicts, holding field hearings in prison, to praise convicts, who stormed the United States Capitol!"

Scarborough said he was particularly shocked that the GOP still hadn't passed any kind of immigration legislation given that gaining control of the United States-Mexico border is the top animating issue among Republican base voters.
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Donald Trump says the greatest problem facing America is its own “sick radical people,” a claim critics, historians, and political experts are labeling clear fascism. The one-term ex-president, running his third consecutive campaign for the White House while currently under criminal felony indictment, sat down with far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson Tuesday.

“I often say, they said to me the other day, one of your fellow journalists said, ‘Who is the biggest problem? Sir is it China? Could it be Russia? Could it be North Korea?'” Trump told Carlson. “I said the biggest problem is from within. It’s the sick radical people from within,” Trump declared, presumably referring to Democrats and anyone who opposes him.
Director At Florida Liberal Arts College Likens Ron DeSantis’ Takeover To ‘Fascism’
Story by Nina Golgowski

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to transform the New College of Florida into a conservative beacon are being compared to fascism by the school’s director of the applied data science program, who issued a scathing rebuke recently while announcing his resignation.

Aaron Hillegass, in a letter shared on social media Saturday, tore into the Republican governor’s recent appointment of six conservatives to the public school’s Board of Trustees and the ousting of the school’s president in favor of a conservative career politician.

He further ripped a DeSantis official’s expressed desire to turn the small liberal arts school into a conservative “Hillsdale College of the South.” One newly appointed trustee said this could inspire other conservative state legislators to “reconquer public institutions all over the United States.”
Ron DeSantis Called 'Fascist' by College Director in Resignation Letter
Story by Giulia Carbonaro

The director of New College of Florida's applied data science program has offered his resignation in a letter that accused Governor Ron DeSantis of being a "fascist" over his conservative overhaul of the school.

Aaron Hillegass has worked at New College—a public liberal arts institution in Sarasota, Florida—since November 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. His role has been to recruit students and professors, help students find jobs after leaving school, and teach machine learning. On April 8, he offered his resignation, decrying alleged attempts to transform the school into the "Hillsdale of the South."

Story by Branko Marcetic

A bombshell new report reveals just how extensively Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has allowed billionaire interests to buy him favors. But he’s far from the only one on the powerful court that’s happy to be showered in favors from the ultrarich.

In a week that saw the unprecedented indictment of a former president and the surreal image of his appearance in a courtroom, the chaotic fun house of American politics somehow found room to fit another bombshell. Last Wednesday, ProPublica reported that Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas — the most right-wing justice on the most right-wing court in generations — has for decades been secretly taking luxury trips and other lavish gifts paid for by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow, all without disclosure, unambiguously breaking the law in the process.

It’s worth reading the whole piece to drink in the full, scandalous details. Those include a photorealistic painting of Thomas and Crow at the latter’s opulent lakeside resort, depicting the two hanging out together with, among others, longtime Federalist Society bigwig Leonard Leo, maybe the leading architect of the court’s hard-right turn.
Story by Simone

In today’s episode of audacity is at an all-time high, a Georgia football coach and trainer filmed his own racist rant seen in now-viral video clips. Mark Taylor, the owner of Speed Edge Sports, is under fire after posting several videos online of him making deplorable remarks about Atlanta residents, even saying he’d get someone to hang Black people in the city.

The man in question is known for training high school and college football players, preparing them for the next level. On his personal Facebook profile, he’s seen posing for photos with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, Alabama’s Nick Saban, Florida’s former coach Dan Mullen and numerous black players, including Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.

In the clips posted to social media, Taylor is driving around and recording while saying, “I ain’t seen a white person in sight. Homeless ones on the street. Every restaurant looking in here is Black. Every car beside them is Black. They can have Atlanta.”
Story by Sky Palma

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is suing House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) in a move to block House Republicans from interfering in his criminal case against former President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported.
Sky Palma

The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems' defamation suit against Fox News will bar any mention of the Jan.6 Capitol riot, granting a win to the network, The Washington Post reported.
Story by Jamie Burton

MSNBC host Joy Reid has said white evangelicals "don't give a damn" whether a child lives or dies after being born, accusing the right-wing white religious sector of hypocrisy when it comes to abortion and gun policy.

The host of The ReidOut is often seen as a divisive figure and her latest comments during a discussion with guest Jeff Sharlet have once again sparked debate. On Monday's show she shared the results of a poll by the PRRI 2022 American Values Atlas, which found that just 27 percent of white evangelical Protestants believed abortion should be legal in all or most states.

The legality of abortion is now decided on a state by state basis ever since Roe V. Wade was overturned in June 2022. Reid said she highlighted white evangelical Protestants because they have "disproportionate power" in the United States.
Story by Richard Luscombe in Miami

ARepublican Florida state lawmaker has made a partial apology for calling transgender people “demons”, “imps” and “mutants” during a hearing on a contentious bathroom bill. Webster Barnaby, a self-described “proud Christian conservative”, said his “indignation was stirred” by members of the transgender community who spoke out on Monday against the bill banning them from bathrooms not aligned to their gender at birth.

The controversy comes just days after conservatives elsewhere in the state forced the removal of an illustrated novel about Anne Frank from a high school library, claiming it contained inappropriate sexual material that “minimized” the Holocaust. By Tuesday, Barnaby’s Twitter account appeared to have been removed from the platform after his outburst the previous day at a Florida state house commerce committee hearing in Tallahassee. “The Lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” he told the speakers at the hearing. “That’s right, I called you demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend you are part of this world.
Story by Mikael Thalen

Right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong appeared to insinuate that something nefarious had taken place after a dairy factory in Texas exploded on Monday. Authorities have yet to reveal the cause of the explosion, which took place at South Fork Dairy in the city of Dimmitt, but are expected to release their findings on Tuesday. Yet despite no evidence pointing to foul play, conspiracy theories have begun to spread. "How does a dairy farm explode?" Cheong questioned.

The suggestion that such an occurrence is suspicious is not new. Over the past several months, conspiracy theorists have pointed to fires and other disasters at food processing plants as proof of a sinister effort by the "elite" to take control of the country's food supply. Although a handful of those who responded to Cheong's tweet agreed, the vast majority were quick to point out the countless hazards at the facility that could have caused the explosion. "The Pasteurization process boils the milk," one user responded. "The fuel for that heat is flammable. It might be natural gas. Also, the milk vapor is under pressure."
Story by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff

House Bill 1069, also known as the "Don't Say Period" bill, which passed in Florida's Republican-controlled House at the end of March, means what you think it means.

The bill proposes banning any form of health education until sixth grade and would prohibit students from asking questions about menstruation, including about their own first periods, which frequently occur before the sixth grade. If passed by Florida's Senate and signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the ban will be effective July 1.

In response, much has been written about the harms of depriving young people of information about their own changing bodies, and howin such a void, schools will instead be teaching a culture of shame. It's a dizzying moment.
Story by Chief Editor

Though they may pretend to be thick skinned and in favor of the Constitution, the ultraconservative Right is on a culture crusade to cancel everything they disagree with. First it was a Woman's right to an abortion. Then came the attack on LGBTQI+. Then teaching objective history in schools. Then how women legislators dress (how modern!). Now, they are beginning to buy cases of Budweiser beer and shoot them for social media solidarity against temporary gay inclusive labeling. This past week, they are even evicting elected legislators they disagree with for using their First Amendment rights. These days it seems like guns are the only things they don't want to legislate against. They hardly ever seem to raise their voices against the number one killer of kids in America.

What about this has anything to do with the dominant American values we hold and share? What about this will make America great? They allege to be anti-woke cancel culture, but the far-right is quick to use legislation to cancel everything in their path. That is, only things that suit their belief system which is wildly incompatible with the Bill of Rights and personal freedom. Today's Republicans are suffering from what Chris Rock called in his recent special for Netflix: "selective outrage".
Story by Igor Derysh

The Nashville Metro Council on Monday unanimously voted to reinstate Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones to his seat after the Republican-led legislature expelled him for taking part in a gun reform protest on the House floor.

All 36 council members at Monday's meeting unanimously voted to reinstate Jones, one of the so-called "Tennessee Three," after suspending its rules to allow for an immediate vote rather than go through a monthlong nomination period, according to NBC News.

Jones, who will now serve in an interim capacity until the next election, was sworn in on the steps of the State Capitol about an hour later as supporters chanted "welcome home."

"I want to welcome democracy back to the people's house," Jones said in a speech on the House floor. "I want to thank you all, not for what you did, but for awakening the people of this state, particularly the young people. Thank you for reminding us that the struggle for justice is fought and won in every generation."
Their expulsion is a petty act of revenge from Republicans who refuse to accept the will of the voters
By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Between climate strikes and gun safety demonstrations, we are living in the heyday of children's protests, in ways unseen since Mother Jones led an army of children to protest child labor at the beginning of the 20th century. While it's been drowned out by the coverage of Donald Trump's Manhattan arrest, protests in Nashville, Tennessee in recent days have been eye-popping in both their intensity and the age of the participants. A sea of children, some elementary school age, have repeatedly flooded the Capitol to demand better gun safety laws after a recent school shooting left six people murdered, three of whom were small children. Gun deaths of children have climbed 50% in the past two years, making it the number one cause of death for people under 18.
Story by Peter Weber

Leaker of damaging U.S. intelligence files was reportedly administrator of a Discord chat room
The U.S. is scrambling to contain the damage from the leak of potentially hundreds of classified documents discovered last week on social media sites. The Justice Department is investigating to figure out who leaked the documents and why, and the Pentagon is working with the State Department, White House, and intelligence agencies to determine how damaging the leak is, try and assuage angry allies, and figure out how to prevent future breaches.

At this point, "we don't know who is behind this; we don't know what the motive is," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday. "We don't know what else might be out there."
Alex Henderson

On Friday, June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — overturning, in a 6-3 ruling, Roe v. Wade and, along with it, 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and paving the way for individual states to outlaw abortion.

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled. The authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Under the Dobbs ruling, millions of women in the United States will lose access to legal abortion. But the implications of Dobbs go way beyond abortion rights, and Justice Clarence Thomas himself is saying so. Thomas, one of the six justices who voted to overturn Roe, is now saying that the U.S. Supreme Court should reevaluate right-to-privacy decisions protecting gay rights and access to contraception.
Story by Alex Henderson

When pro-choice Sen. Susan Collins of Maine voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, the pro-choice Republican insisted that then-President Donald Trump's nominee considered Roe v. Wade "settled law." But she was wrong. In 2022, Kavanaugh was among the five justices who voted to overturn Roe — after 49 years — with the widely unpopular Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

Dobbs was not a nationwide abortion ban. Post-Roe, the legality or illegality of abortion is being decided on a state-by-state basis in the United States. And one of the things the lower federal courts are grappling with is the availability of abortion bills.

In 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the abortion drug mifepristone. But on Friday, April 7, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk — a "one-time Christian activist" and Trump appointee from North Texas — suspended that approval. President Joe Biden was quick to call Kacsmaryk out and describe his ruling as "another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk."
Alex Henderson

During the 1990s, far-right Justice Clarence Thomas often found himself at odds with both Democrats and fellow Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had more than her share of disagreements with Thomas, and Ronald Reagan appointees Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor were likely to part company with Thomas when it came to right-to-privacy decisions, abortion and gay rights.

Thomas' closest ideological ally on the High Court during the 1990s was Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. They were the socially conservative justices who were the most likely to side with the religious right, and their critics — a mixture of liberals, progressives and right-wing libertarians — regarded them as the Court's lunatic fringe.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Far-right activist Candace Owens is under fire by the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research after she complained about people with disabilities getting represented in commercials.

"During an episode of her podcast, Owens said about an ad depicting a woman in a wheelchair modeling underwear: 'I don’t really understand how far we are going to take this inclusivity thing.' She added: 'I don’t know why this needs to be done. I’m just getting tired of this all-inclusivity thing, it just seems ridiculous,'" noted the organization in a statement. "Owens’ unapologetic comments have garnered wide-ranging disapproval across the political spectrum, including Hollywood actress Christina Applegate – who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2021. Applegate commented on Twitter: 'Woke to see the most horrible thing. This Candace person making comments about companies who see we need help. It’s f****** gross.'"

In particular, the comment drew outrage from the senior adviser to NCPPR's Able Americans program, Melissa Ortiz. “As a lifelong conservative, I am appalled that Candace Owens seems to see herself as the spokeswoman on this issue for the whole freedom movement,” Ortiz said, in an article originally published in USA Today. “Owens and I prove that no political leaning is monolithic in nature. Her boldness resonates with me and many other conservative women. But I was stunned by her comments about women in wheelchairs modeling underwear, especially her sentiment that no one wants to see that.”
Story by Andrew Solender

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee on Monday announced plans to hold a field hearing in Manhattan focused on violent crime in the borough.

Why it matters: It's the panel's latest effort to undermine Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as he prosecutes former President Donald Trump for criminal charges related to several hush money payments around the 2016 election.

Driving the news: The panel will hold an April 17 hearing at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in downtown Manhattan entitled, "Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan."

The hearing "will examine how Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents," according to an advisory sent out by the committee, which is led by Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Committee spokesperson Russell Dye said members of both parties are welcome to attend but it's unclear if Democrats would accept the invitation.
Story by Tom Bemis

CEO says Disney was exercising a constitutional right in its position on “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. Disney chairman Bob Iger has largely let the company’s lawyers do the talking in its dispute with Florida Governor and likely Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. After the company opposed a Florida law last year that came to be known as the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, DeSantis targeted Disney for being “woke.”
Story by salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani)

As part of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's extensive immigration reform legislative package, undocumented students could lose access to in-state tuition rates.

The legislation would repeal a 2014 law that gave undocumented students and beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects those who came as children from deportation, access to in-state tuition rates. That law was enacted by DeSantis' predecessor Rick Scott, who is now a GOP Senator.

This immigration package would also make it a felony to shelter or transport an undocumented immigrant in the state, invalidate out-of-state driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, and also require hospitals to ask patients about their immigration status to report to the state, among other measures.
Story by Brad Reed

Former President Donald Trump on Monday morning wasn't just content to attack the man whom he appointed to be his attorney general, he also lashed out at prosecutors of all stripes for purportedly leading political investigations into his conduct.

Shortly after he criticized "slovenly" former Attorney General Bill Barr for saying he would likely be indicted for refusing to return top-secret government documents he'd stashed at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump took aim at every person investigating him with an all-caps rage post on his Truth Social platform.
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