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US Monthly Headline News April 2023 - Page 5
Story by lloydlee@insider.com (Lloyd Lee)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is getting criticized for identifying the victims of a Friday mass shooting in Cleveland, Texas, as "illegal immigrants" in the same statement in which he offered condolences to their loved ones.

On Friday evening, a drunk man shot and killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, after the neighbors asked the man to stop firing his AR-15-style weapon in the air, according to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.

Abbott released a statement on Sunday offering a $50,000 reward for information regarding the shooter, who authorities say "could be anywhere" by now. The governor also offered condolences to the families, but not before the statement identified the victims as "illegal immigrants."

Police identified the victims as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8. Authorities have not publicly disclosed the victims' citizenship status.
Story by kbalevic@insider.com (Katie Balevic)

A relatively little-known Republican presidential candidate wants to shut down the FBI and replace it with a new bureau that sounds a lot like the FBI. If you're confused about 2024 GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's proposal, you're not alone. MSNBC's Chuck Todd called Ramaswamy's plan to shutter the FBI "a bit of a head-scratcher for me" during an interview with the candidate on Sunday's "Meet the Press."

"I didn't say defund the FBI. I said shut down the FBI and replace it with something new," said Ramaswamy, an "anti-woke" biotech millionaire. "I think it's a new apparatus built from scratch that actually respects the law instead of making it up."
The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, after one asked him to stop shooting rounds in his yard, the San Jacinto County sheriff said. Authorities are offering an $80,000 reward.
By Priscilla Thompson, Dennis Romero, Minyvonne Burke and Julianne McShane

CLEVELAND, Texas — Authorities were still searching Sunday for a man accused of fatally shooting five of his neighbors, including an 8-year-old child, in their Texas home last week after one asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard.

The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, 38, was armed with a black AR-15 semi-automatic rifle when he went to the home in the Trails End area in Cleveland around 11:30 p.m. Friday and opened fire, the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said. The FBI previously spelled the suspect's last name as "Oropeza" but released the updated spelling as "Oropesa" on Sunday "to better reflect his identity in law enforcement systems," the FBI’s Houston office tweeted Sunday.

On Saturday, authorities believed they had the suspect within a 2-mile or so search area but said later he may have slipped past it after they found his cellphone and clothing. "He could be anywhere now," Sheriff Greg Capers said at a news conference.
Story by Andrew Herrig

12 Curious Facts About Donald Trump We Never Knew That Explain A Lot
Donald Trump is a controversial figure who has been in the public eye for many years. As a businessman, reality television star, and politician, he has attracted a lot of attention and scrutiny. Here are several mind-blowing facts about Donald Trump you probably haven’t heard. 1. Trump Was a Millionaire By Age 8 According to ...
Story by Andrew Solender

Adivide has opened between House and Senate Democrats over whether President Biden should negotiate a debt ceiling compromise with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The public discordance between the two caucuses, at a time when Democrats want a united front against GOP efforts to slash government spending, appears to have party leaders spooked. At least one House Democrat has received a call from Senate Democratic leadership urging them to tamp down their advocacy for talks between the White House and House Republicans, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
No free speech in DeSantis's Florida

Story by kniemeyer@insider.com (Kenneth Niemeyer)

Florida is threatening to remove an elected school superintendent who has been critical of Gov. Ron DeSantis. Leon County Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna publicly criticized DeSantis for the governor's ban on mask mandates at schools during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

And at the beginning of the fall semester, Hanna sent an email to school staff telling them to ignore political pressure in the state and "continue to teach the standards just as you have always done." Now Hanna may be facing retribution. The state education department gave Hanna an ultimatum in early April to either attend a hearing or risk being fined, put on probation, or even having his teaching license revoked, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Story by Joshua Wilburn

Awhistleblower who was fired from his position as executive VP at Donald Trump's Truth Social turned over 150,000 documents regarding the social media platform to federal investigators, RadarOnline.com has learned. 38-year-old Will Wilkerson oversaw the development of the conservative Twitter alternative — now he's reportedly working at a Starbucks in North Carolina for $16 an hour.

Wilkerson's cushy job with Trump, along with stock options to potentially make him a millionaire, all went down the drain after he decided to distance himself from Truth Social and warn investors in the company that they might be at risk of losing their investments. Despite the potential financial gain he had while working for Trump, Wilkerson said he was more focused on doing what he believes is "right."
Story by David Edwards

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told a group of Republican donors over the weekend that Americans need to "throw out the trash" when securing the border. While speaking at a Reagan dinner in Ohio, Greene said that her generation had a responsibility to the country.
David McAfee

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spent more than $65,000 on fencing for her home this year using campaign funds, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records.
Story by Brandon Gage

United States Representative Joe Neguse (D-Colorado) on Sunday tore into House Republicans for their brinksmanship regarding raising the Treasury Department's borrowing limit under the leadership of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California).

McCarthy's proposal to increase the debt ceiling by $1.4 trillion, which passed the House last week, contains substantial cuts to social programs that benefit the most vulnerable members of the American population. Neguse, echoing other Democrats' critiques of McCarthy's legislation, explained the dangers that the GOP's latest stunt poses to the fiscal health of the country.

"Raising the debt ceiling is supposed to be a rudimentary process, but the, the effects of the cuts in this bill could force families into and the whole economy into a depression. What's at stake if Congress and the president don't come to some agreement on this?" MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart asked.
Story by David McAfee

GA Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) shared a video on Saturday in which she made references to "potential crimes" by President Joe Biden and said his son, Hunter Biden, is "the biggest piece of white trash in America."

Greene, who recently launched a public survey to find out what the country thinks about her ongoing investigation of what she calls the "Biden crime family," has claimed that she has witnessed 2,000 pages of evidence against the Biden family.

Greene said in a tweet late Saturday that the Biden family "has been influence peddling Joe Biden's public office as Senator, VP, and POTUS." "Not one person has done anything about it, but the buck stops under the Republican-led House," she added. Greene said the GOP's House Committee on Oversight and Accountability "is hard at work investigating the potential crimes of the Biden family."
Story by Tom Boggioni

Reacting to a New York Times report that investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith are focusing on evidence of wire fraud related to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential election loss, former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner suggested a conspiracy indictment might be forthcoming that encompasses those charges. Speaking with MSNBC's "The Saturday Show" host Jonathan Capehart, the former prosecutor claimed such charges were hinted at by a California judge last year.

According to the Times, "Led by the special counsel Jack Smith, prosecutors are trying to determine whether Mr. Trump and his aides violated federal wire fraud statutes as they raised as much as $250 million through a political action committee by saying they needed the money to fight to reverse election fraud even though they had been told repeatedly that there was no evidence to back up those fraud claims."
Opinion by Conor Friedersdorf

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has long presented himself as a principled champion of “freedom.” In Congress, he was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. He refers to himself as “governor of the free state of Florida.” And while laying the groundwork for a possible presidential run, he is promoting a book on his approach that he titled The Courage to Be Free.

On Wednesday, Florida’s biggest employer, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, filed a lawsuit alleging that DeSantis is violating its First Amendment right to freedom of speech. According to the complaint, “a targeted campaign of government retaliation—orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech—now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”

The case will subject DeSantis’s understanding of freedom and what protecting it requires to the crucible of constitutional law. And his position is likelier to shatter than to withstand the heat.
Story by Rae Hodge

Arkansas' newly-elected Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders — not so long ago the spokeswoman for Donald Trump's White House — has been on quite the tear in her first 100 days in office. The chosen voice of the GOP's State of the Union rebuttal. The quintessential Southern heiress and political nepotism beneficiary. The awkward leftover Trump leftover, who was repeatedly caught lying repeatedly to reporters from her former perch in the Brady briefing room.

Despite all that, and her advocacy for a number of deeply unpopular policies, Sanders is the second-most popular among newly elected governors in the latest Morning Consult poll. Sure, it would be easy to capture her first 100 days in the series of embarrassing fumbles noted online. Consider the cringeworthy commercial she recently released, which misses the mark of anything remotely comedic by trying way too hard for a laugh — oh, and also leveraging performative transphobia.
Story by Khadeeja Safdar, David Benoit

The nation’s spy chief, a longtime college president and top women in finance. The circle of people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein years after he was a convicted sex offender is wider than previously reported, according to a trove of documents that include his schedules.

William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021, had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan.

Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had dozens of meetings with Epstein in the years after her White House service and before she became a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2020. He also planned for her to join a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.

Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, invited Epstein, who brought a group of young female guests, to the campus. Noam Chomsky, a professor, author and political activist, was scheduled to fly with Epstein to have dinner at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse in 2015.
Story by kbalevic@insider.com (Katie Balevic)

Neighbors came to a Texas man's fence and asked him to stop firing his gun in his yard because they had a baby next door who was trying to sleep. In response, police say the man drunkenly went next door and killed five people with an AR-15-style rifle, ABC News reported. He remains at large.

It is the latest in a string of shootings resulting from seemingly normal and even mundane interactions. In Kansas City, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head after he accidentally went to the wrong house to pick up his younger siblings. In New York, a 20-year-old woman was shot and killed after she and her friends pulled their car into the wrong driveway.

Authorities from the San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office told KTRK-TV, a local ABC News affiliate in Houston, that the suspect, identified by police as 39-year-old Francisco Oropeza, had been drunk and firing shots from his front porch in Cleveland, Texas. At about 11:30 pm on Friday, neighbors intervened.
Story by Tom Boggioni

In an interview with CNN, the former director of the USOffice of Government Ethics dismantled a letter issued by the Supreme Court in response to accusations that several justices are engaging in law-breaking by claiming to be above the Ethics inGovernment Act.

Speaking with CNN's Zachary Wolf, legal expert Walter Schuab took issue with the arrogance of the court -- Chief Justice John Roberts included -- for refusing to be accountable to anyone but themselves while dismissing the authority of the Judicial Conference of the United States to review any accusations.

As Shaub put it, the current conservative-majority court is putting on display "a culture of exceptionalism, where the Supreme Court’s justices just feel that they’re above law, above question and above everything else in the government."

With Wolf citing the ethical clouds hovering over Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni, Neil Gorsuch and new questions now being raised about Roberts' wife Jane raking in "$10.3 million in commissions for her work for elite law firms, one of which argued a case before her husband," Shaub claimed the court's defensive letter rings hollow.
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

AFlorida county schools superintendent targeted by Ron DeSantis could lose his job and even his teaching license over his criticism of the Republican governor, after the head of a radical parents group who appeared in a political advertisement with DeSantis asked the governor to fire him. Supporters of the superintendent are speaking out, accusing DeSantis of “1950s McCarthyism” and “retaliatory bullying.”

The issue echoes Governor DeSantis’ attacks on entertainment giant Disney, who DeSantis has repeatedly targeted for exercising its constitutional rights. Disney sued DeSantis in a First Amendment lawsuit this week. Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Díaz, Jr., an anti-vaxxer who last year ordered schools to ignore the Biden administration’s guidance on LGBTQ students, sent a letter to Leon County Superintendent of Schools Rocky Hanna notifying him the state is moving forward.

The letter claims the DOE has probable cause to “justify sanctions against your Florida educator certificate,” the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The DOE claims it has been investigating if Hanna’s “personal views” have had an impact on how he runs the district.
Story by David McAfee

Aprosecutor in Florida didn't hold back in a letter sent to the press Friday about Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in which she accused the state executive of trying "to exploit his political agenda against" her based on her differences of opinion.

State Attorney Monique Worrell wrote the letter in response to a request her office reportedly got from State Committeewoman Debbie Galvin, who requested information on two separate cases in which Worrell had allegedly failed to prosecute cases to get justice for victims of human trafficking crimes. Worrell said the request purported to come at the request of DeSantis' office, but did not come through the appropriate government channels, according to the letter published by Orlando Weekly.

The request claimed that “this is happening all over the country where these prosecutors are not following the law,” according to Worrell.
Republicans are banning books and attacking libraries and librarians

Story by Barbara VanDenburgh, USA TODAY

Banned books are not new, but they have gained new relevance in an escalating culture war that puts books centering racism, sexuality and gender identity at risk in public schools and libraries. A dramatic uptick in challenged books over the past few years, an escalation of censorship tactics, and the coordinated harassment of teachers and librarians has regularly put book banning efforts in news headlines.

Would-be book banners argue that readers can still purchase books they can no longer access through public libraries, but that is only true for those with the financial resources to do so. For many, particularly children and young adults, schools and public libraries are the only means to access literature.
Story by Richard Rubin

WASHINGTON—Republicans finally found a tax increase they can support. The party, united for decades around the view that net tax increases are unacceptable, on Wednesday advanced debt-ceiling legislation that would raise taxes by more than $300 billion over a decade, according to official congressional estimates.

The bill, which passed in the GOP-controlled House and won’t survive the Democratic-led Senate, would repeal clean-energy tax credits that Congress created last year. The changes would shrink breaks for wind energy, solar power, hydrogen and electric vehicles, effectively raising taxes on some manufacturers, car buyers and others.

Top Republicans see such clean-energy subsidies as more like spending rather than tax reductions, and they say their debt-ceiling bill would end such inefficient, expensive programs created by Democrats. They also promised that any final bill wouldn’t include net tax increases. Republicans continue to oppose tax hikes President Biden has proposed for high-income households and corporations, and they are proposing further tax cuts for businesses and individuals.

Still, their willingness to advance a bill that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says would raise tax revenue shows Republicans are less focused on official tax tallies and more determined to reverse Mr. Biden’s agenda.
Story by Gideon Rubin

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ wife earned $10.3 million in commissions for her work for elite law firms, one of which argued a case before her husband, Business Insider reports. Jane Sullivan Roberts stepped away from her career as a prominent lawyer two years after her husband’s confirmation to the Supreme Court to become a legal recruiter, matching job-seeking lawyers with employers in what turned out to be a lucrative career change.

She made $10.3 million in commissions from 2007 to 2014, according to a whistleblower complaint, which cites internal records that were obtained from her employer by a disgruntled former colleague of Jane Roberts. Kendal B. Price, the whistleblower who worked with Roberts at the firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, said as the chief justice’s wife, income Jane Roberts earns from law firms who try cases before the court should be subject to scrutiny. "When I found out that the spouse of the chief justice was soliciting business from law firms, I knew immediately that it was wrong,” Price told Business Insider.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Although a formal offer cannot be made, recently fired Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is reportedly getting word that Fox News competitor Newsmax would like him to come on board. Carlson was abruptly and unceremoniously booted from his popular nighttime show on Monday and is still under contract to his former employer and reportedly has a no-compete clause that prevents him from moving elsewhere immediately.

According to TMZ, "Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... the news channel is doing everything it can to sweeten the deal for Tucker to come on board -- including floating the idea of letting him program the whole channel, not just his own show." The report adds he can't be directly contacted, because he is prohibited from talking with competitors, but Newsmax "network execs have made it clear to people around him, they would basically give him a big say in rebranding their channel."
Story by Matthew Chapman

Former President Donald Trump met with convicted January 6 Capitol rioter, Micki Larson-Olson in New Hampshire Thursday, praising her and giving her a hug before signing her backpack, reported The Washington Post. "Listen, you just hang in there. You guys are gonna be okay," Trump told Larson-Olson, a Texas woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail for resisting police orders last year.

According to NBC News' Vaughn Hillyard on Friday, Larson-Olson is unrepentant for her actions. And in an interview with Hillyard last year, she called for the execution of anyone who certified the 2020 election. "[Members of Congress] were domestic terrorist inside our Capitol, and I'm going to prove it in my trial," said Larson-Olson. "Our Congress that's been stealing elections for a very long time. Our country's been under admiralty law since 1871."

The admiralty law remark is a reference to a bizarre conspiracy theory pushed by the so-called "sovereign citizen" movement, which holds that the United States was secretly replaced with a private corporation in the 19th century and that individual people can legally declare themselves their own government and be immune from laws.
Story by Tom Norton

The passage of the "Limit, Save, Grow Act" plan on Wednesday detailing what actions House Republicans want to see before agreeing to raise the federal debt limit leaves President Joe Biden with precarious economic decision-making.

For months, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has demanded that Biden meet with him to negotiate a plan to cut the nearly $31.5 trillion federal deficit in order to secure a GOP commitment to raise the debt limit. Without an agreement, the U.S. risks defaulting on its debt. Amid the wrangling, one commentator on social media claimed that former President Donald Trump raised the debt ceiling repeatedly throughout his term without the need for cuts.

The Claim
A tweet by political commentator Oren Jacobson, posted on April 26, 2023, viewed 285,000 times, claimed that "When the @GOP demands spending cuts to raise the debt ceiling (pay our credit card bill) just remember...Trump raised the debt ceiling 3x without cutting spending."

The Facts
The debt ceiling bill aims to cut much of federal spending to last year's levels, including by placing a cap on subsequent budget growth at a 1 percent annual increase over the next decade. The measure also advances several Republican priorities, such as expediting new oil drilling projects and giving Congress a greater say to conduct oversight into the executive branch. With a Republican-led House, could it be that McCarthy's plans to make cuts are a hangover from years of dodging hawkish behavior under Trump?
Story by Josh Fiallo

The list of school officials targeted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be growing longer, with Leon County Superintendent Rocky Hanna revealing this week that he’s the subject of a “meritless” probe to possibly strip him of his teaching certificate after he criticized the governor. Hanna claims the state isn’t even trying to spin why they’re investigating him, saying plainly that he’s under-the-gun in part for sharing his “political views,” according to a Florida Department of Education complaint.

The superintendent, which oversees public schools in the state capital where DeSantis lives, said in a statement to The Daily Beast that he believes the probe stems from a letter sent to DeSantis last year from a right-wing Moms For Liberty executive who begged the governor to oust Hanna.

That letter, penned by a Brandi Andrews and stamped with an all-caps “Let’s Go Brandon” on the bottom, dissects an email Hanna sent to teachers at the start of the school year. In that email, Hanna said to ignore the increasing political pressure in the state, telling his instructors “you do you” and “to continue to teach the standards just as you have always done”—something Andrews took issue with.
Story by Nicola Slawson

Good morning. A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to information obtained by the Guardian.

The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.
Story by Michael Arceneaux

For at least a year now, Republican lawmakers across the country have targeted public libraries over their inclusion of queer and transgender authors and works that address any subject matter related to sexuality and racism.

One of the most recent examples of this includes the Missouri House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, approving a budget that would eliminate $4.5 million in state funding for public libraries. The move, led by Missouri Rep. Cody Smith, who serves as House Budget Committee chair, reportedly came in response to the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filing a lawsuit on behalf of the Missouri Association of School Librarians and the Missouri Library Association that challenges a 2022 state law banning educators from “providing sexually explicit material” to students.

The problem with the recently enacted state law, a violation of which can result in up to a $2,000 fine or a year in jail, is that conservatives tend to inherently brand any material chronicling queerness or challenging the gender binary to be indecent. That has resulted in nearly 300 books being removed from school libraries, according to EducationWeek.
CNN

Three years ago, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot by officers of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) in Kentucky as they executed a middle-of-the-night raid of her apartment during a drug investigation of her former boyfriend. Shortly after midnight, a team of four police officers used a battering ram to force their way into Taylor’s home, where she slept alongside her then-boyfriend Kenneth Walker on March 13, 2020.

Walker, who at the time was armed with a legally owned gun, alleges that officers did not announce themselves before entering the home, which LMPD disputes. Fearing that the police were intruders, he fired his weapon, striking one officer in the leg. Police returned fire, killing Taylor. At around the same time that night, Taylor’s former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, was being taken into custody in a police operation in another part of town.
Story by Tom Boggioni

New questions are being raised about a GOP-authored Senate report that conclusively cleared now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault allegations brought forward at his confirmation hearings. According to a report from the Guardian, there are "serious omissions" of facts in the report, with the Guardian's Stephanie Kirchgaessner writing that report, done at the behest of then-Senate Judicary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), contained a major misstatement of facts.

As the Guardian report notes, "It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was 'likely' mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts." However, as the report points out it was case of mistaken identity instead suggested by a lawyer working in conjunction with Mike Davis, lead counsel for the GOP-led committee.
Story by Oliver Darcy

“Hold off on the [Ron] DeSantis thing.” That was the order from top Breitbart editor Matt Boyle in the company’s internal Slack channel last week, instructing staffers at the far-right outlet to pause stories on the Florida governor ahead of an expected 2024 run. Boyle, who described DeSantis as “inept,” signaled that stories related to the governor needed “sign off” from him, Editor-In-Chief Alex Marlow, and chief executive Larry Solov, according to screenshots of the conversation that I obtained.

The instruction from Boyle, the site’s notably pro-Trump editor, came after staffers had flagged a DeSantis commercial spoofing Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light video, which had generated a storm of anti-transgender backlash in conservative circles. The terse command led to suspicion inside Breitbart that Boyle, who had already confessed he viewed DeSantis negatively, was trying to wield his power at the outlet to tilt the scales against the Sunshine State governor and in favor of Trump in the lead up to the 2024 contest. Boyle’s order, however, was met with fierce pushback.
Story by Katelyn Polantz

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified on Thursday to a federal grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of then-President Donald Trump and others, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The testimony marks a momentous juncture in the criminal investigation and the first time in modern history a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served beside.

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified on Thursday to a federal grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of then-President Donald Trump and others, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The testimony marks a momentous juncture in the criminal investigation and the first time in modern history a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served beside.
Story by Matthew Chapman

ARepublican who unsuccessfully ran for Allegheny County Council in 2021 has been accused of pulling a gun during an altercation at a Republican committee meeting, reported the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Friday. The problems allegedly started when Eric Phillip Casteel began shouting during the meeting, taking place at the Plum Community Center near Pittsburgh.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

The Washington Post revealed that behind the scenes, former President Donald Trump hired a law firm at $750,000 to find voter fraud in the 2020 election. They found nothing. The 2020 election is becoming the most investigated election in history, and each time it confirms that there was no widespread voter fraud and Trump lost.

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team at the Justice Department questioned the founder of the firm about his work disproving Trump's claims. "Ken Block, founder of the firm Simpatico Software Systems, studied more than a dozen voter fraud theories and allegations for Trump’s campaign in late 2020 and found they were 'all false,'" the Post said, quoting the lawyer. Block previously ran for governor in Rhode Island as a Republican.

“No substantive voter fraud was uncovered in my investigations looking for it, nor was I able to confirm any of the outside claims of voter fraud that I was asked to look at,” he said. “Every fraud claim I was asked to investigate was false.” He also confessed he was subpoenaed by Smith's office and met with the prosecutors, but he wouldn't reveal what he said. He explained that he sent his findings disputing the voter fraud in late 2020. It means that Trump had even more information and evidence proving that his claims were false. Trump's team sent a list of claims and Block said all were without evidence with some more absurd than others.
Story by Matt Shuham

During a podcast with former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani admitted to using a “dirty trick” that aimed to suppress Hispanic voters in New York City during his 1993 mayoral campaign. Bannon and Lake laughed along awkwardly as Giuliani described the tactic, which he said spurred a Justice Department investigation and would likely be subject to prosecution today.

The discussion occurred on Giuliani’s “America’s Mayor Live” program on Tuesday night. (Video below.) After complaining, as he has for years, that he’d been “cheated” when he lost New York City’s 1989 mayoral race, Giuliani recalled spending $2 million on a “Voter Integrity Committee” for his next campaign in 1993. He ultimately beat then-incumbent Mayor David Dinkins by around 53,000 votes. When Giuliani first raised the scheme, Bannon sarcastically replied, “A dirty trick in New York City? I’m so shocked.”

Giuliani enthusiastically cut him off. “No, played by Republicans!” he said before explaining more. “Republicans don’t do dirty tricks,” Bannon protested before Giuliani continued, “Well, how about this one?” “So they went through East Harlem, which is all Hispanic, and they gave out little cards, and the card said, ‘If you come to vote, make sure you have your green card because INS are picking up illegals.’ So they spread it all over the Hispanic...” Giuliani trailed off after Lake exclaimed, “Oh my gosh.”
A Transgender Lawmaker Is Exiled as Montana G.O.P. Flexes New Power
Barred by Republican lawmakers from participating in the legislative session on the House floor, Representative Zooey Zephyr reported for work on a hallway bench.
By Jim Robbins, Mike Baker and Jacey Fortin | New York Times

HELENA, Mont. — As Montana lawmakers entered the critical final days of their legislative session on Thursday, one of the state’s only transgender lawmakers, Zooey Zephyr, was left exiled from the House chamber, monitoring the debate and casting votes on a laptop as she sat on a hallway bench near a bustling snack stand.

Even as her Republican peers sought to isolate her in the wake of her impassioned comments against a proposed ban on what doctors call gender-affirming medical care for children, Ms. Zephyr said she would not remain idle. She spent much of the day on the bench, working with headphones in her ears to block the sound of chattering lobbyists, the hiss of a milk foamer and the voices of lawmakers ordering coffee. “I am here working on behalf of my constituents as best I can given the undemocratic circumstances,” Ms. Zephyr said on Twitter.

Democratic Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota discusses what's next for McCarthy's Debt Ceiling Bill after the Biden Administration stated they will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. Senator Tina Smith also talks about the upcoming Federal Reserve report on Silicon Valley Bank. She speaks with Annmarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu on Bloomberg's "Balance of Power."
Story by Tom Boggioni

In an effort to stop advocacy groups from engaging in the type of "judge-shopping" that recently resulted in a Donald Trump-appointed judge issuing a controversial \-- and to most legal scholars -- indefensible ruling on the abortion pill mifepristone, a Democratic lawmaker has proposed a bill that would clamp down on the practice.

According to a report from Vox legal analyst Ian Millhiser, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) is taking the lead in an effort to stop the legal shenanigans of the kind that created chaos until the Supreme Court stepped in and issued a temporary stay of the order. As Millhiser explained, judge shopping is not new and that, in a report in 2021, Chief Justice John Roberts cited it as a growing problem.

According to the Vox report, "Kacsmaryk, and judges like him, are able to shape federal policy so often because of the unusual way Texas’s federal courts assign cases to trial judges. Every federal civil case filed in Amarillo, Texas, is automatically assigned to Kacsmaryk, so Republican litigants who want to all but guarantee a trial court victory simply need to file their complaint in Kacsmaryk’s Amarillo courthouse. Similarly, virtually any lawsuit filed in Victoria, Texas, is assigned to Drew Tipton, another Trump judge whose record is similar to Kacsmaryk’s."
Story by Gideon Rubin

House Republicans on Wednesday showed themselves to be unserious about resolving the debt ceiling crisis, and now they’re offering up two plans, both of which risk plunging the global economy into catastrophe, MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor Hayes Brown writes. Brown notes that the budget House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R) pushed across the finish line Wednesday by the narrowest of margins calls for a $1.5 trillion debt ceiling raise that wouldn’t even pay the nation’s bills for a full year, meaning lawmakers would be relitigating the same problem that they are today.

But the budget plan Republicans passed is all but certainly going nowhere with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House. Brown believes that Congress should eliminate the debt ceiling. “Instead,” Brown writes, “the GOP seems to be pursuing one of two strategies these days, neither of them sensible.” The first strategy is to play a game of political chicken, hoping Democrats capitulate and accept the terms of the Republican budget plan. “No, these antics won’t balance the budget or anything, but if this current hostage-taking works, it will set a precedent for further spending cuts next year once the ceiling is hit again,” Brown writes.
Natasha Bertrand Zachary Cohen
By Natasha Bertrand, Sean Lyngaas, Zachary Cohen and Haley Britzky, CNN

Washington CNN — New details about the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman accused of leaking a trove of classified documents online reveal how multiple red flags went unheeded and weren’t enough to prevent the Pentagon from granting him a top-secret security clearance. Officials across the government are now scrambling to figure out why.

The US government has spent years and vast sums of money overhauling the way it vets and monitors people with access to government secrets. But that didn’t stop the Pentagon from granting a top-secret security clearance to Jack Teixeira, who prosecutors say had an arsenal of weapons at home and a history of violent online rhetoric.

Teixeira had to fill out an extensive questionnaire known as E-QIP (Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing) and be vetted by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency before being granted his clearance in 2021, officials told CNN.

But according to court documents filed by prosecutors on Wednesday, Teixeira was suspended from his high school only three years earlier, when a classmate “overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats.” “That clearly would have been a red flag,” one Pentagon official told CNN.
Story by lovePROPERTY team

Letter sent to Congress revealed more than Trump intended
In the wake of Donald Trump's history-making indictment on criminal charges of business fraud, US officials are honing in on the former president over the ongoing classified documents scandal, which centers on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. The latest news to emerge about the case certainly makes for interesting reading. Trump's legal team has sent a letter to Congress in defense of the former president, however, its contents have disclosed some interesting revelations regarding the top-secret documents stowed away at the Florida estate. Click or scroll on to find out more...

Documents swept into boxes as Trump left the White House
In what appears to be a political move that backfired, Donald Trump's lawyers have revealed in a letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees that foreign leader briefings were among the classified papers taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of Trump's presidential term. As reported by CNN, the discovery was made in a 10-page letter that called for the Justice Department to "stand down" their investigation. Trump's legal team tried to characterize the former president's retention of government documents as accidental, claiming White House staff likely swept paperwork from offices into boxes at random during the chaotic departure of the Trump administration. But in the process, Trump lawyers inadvertently exposed something altogether more surprising in their letter.
Story by David McAfee

Awriter who defended Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' undisclosed lavish vacations with a billionaire reportedly forgot to mention that the reporter was also on the same trips.

Mark Paoletta of the National Review posted an article, arguing that Thomas' trips with friend Harlan Crow arguing that Thomas "did not have to disclose such trips," and that he "acted properly and consistent with the rules." Those allegations, Paoletta argued, are part of Democrats' "broader campaign to delegitimize the" Supreme Court.

"This latest effort by the Left has nothing to do with 'ethics,'" Paoletta argued in the Thursday article. "It has everything to do with trying to destroy the Supreme Court now that there is a working majority of justices moving the Court firmly in an originalist direction."
By JASON DEAREN

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dozens of robed Ku Klux Klansmen gathered around a burning cross in a remote field in North Florida. It was December 2014, and after the cross lighting ceremony ended, three klansmen asked for a quiet aside with the group’s Grand Knighthawk, a klan hitman. The knighthawk was Joe Moore, a former Army sniper who’d joined the group and quickly risen through the ranks due to his military background. The men handed Moore a photograph of a Black man that they wanted killed.

The story of the klan’s murder plot and the hitman’s secret recordings made over months in 2015 formed the basis of an Associated Press 2021 investigative series called “The Badge and The Cross,” which used the story as a jumping off point to explore the issue of white supremacist group infiltration of law enforcement.
By JASON DEAREN

In June, three Florida prison guards who boasted of being white supremacists beat, pepper sprayed and used a stun gun on an inmate who screamed “I can’t breathe!” at a prison near the Alabama border, according to a fellow inmate who reported it to the state. The next day, the officers at Jackson Correctional Institution did it again to another inmate, the report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of Inspector General stated.

“If you notice these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,” the inmate Jamaal Reynolds wrote. “The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.”

Both incidents occurred in view of surveillance cameras, he said. Reynolds’ neatly printed letter included the exact times and locations and named the officers and inmates. It’s the type of specific information that would have made it easier for officials to determine if the reports were legitimate. But the inspector general’s office did not investigate, corrections spokeswoman Molly Best said. Best did not provide further explanation, and the department hasn’t responded to The Associated Press’ August public records requests for the videos.
Story by Alex Henderson

Throughout his 32 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, now 74, has been controversial. Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, was confirmed to the High Court after a contentious U.S. Senate battle in which attorney Anita Hill alleged that he had sexually harassed her — an allegation Thomas vehemently denied. And during the 1990s and 2000s, the far-right justice often butted heads with the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as well as with Justice Anthony Kennedy (a right-wing libertarian and Ronald Reagan appointee who was replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh after his retirement in 2018) on issues like abortion and gay rights.
Story by Aaron Gregg

Disney is suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over what it calls a “relentless campaign to weaponize government power” — a major escalation of the standoff between the entertainment giant and the conservative governor.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida accuses DeSantis of orchestrating a campaign to punish Disney over its political views. The lawsuit comes just one week after DeSantis pledged to work with the state legislature to roll back Disney’s corporate control over its Florida theme park.
Story by Alison Durkee, Forbes Staff

Topline
The board overseeing Walt Disney World’s special district, made up of officials appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), voted Wednesday to revoke a controversial development agreement Disney made before their appointment that takes away much of the board’s power, paving the way for a legal battle over the agreement and escalating DeSantis and his allies’ war with Disney.

Key Facts
The board voted unanimously at a public meeting to declare the development agreement “void and unenforceable,” directing the special district’s attorneys to “commence litigation” that would complete the process of nullifying the agreement and prohibit its enforcement.
Story by Michael Luciano

Fox News has a so-called “oppo file” on Tucker Carlson that it is willing to weaponize against him if he takes shots at his old network, Rolling Stone reported on Tuesday. The network vehemently denies the report. Fox announced his departure on Monday morning, stating it was mutual. However, sources say he was fired. The termination came as the network faces a lawsuit from a former Carlson producer who is alleging sexual harassment and discrimination at the network.

Rolling Stone reported that eight sources told the publication that Fox “has assembled damaging information about Carlson. One source with knowledge calls it an ‘oppo file.’ Two sources add that Fox is prepared to disclose some of its contents if execs suspect that Carlson is coming after the network.”
MSNBC

Gene Sperling, a senior advisor to President Biden and former director of the National Economic Council, joins MSNBC’s Ali Velshi to discuss the danger of Kevin McCarthy’s “default brinkmanship,” as the Republican leader attempts to negotiate around a debt limit increase despite the severe economic consequences of a default.
By Tami Luhby, CNN

CNN — House Republicans are using the debt ceiling standoff to advocate for one of their longstanding goals – requiring more low-income Americans to work in order to receive government benefits, particularly food stamps and Medicaid. They see work requirements as a twofer, allowing them to reduce government spending, while bolstering the nation’s labor force at a time when many businesses are still struggling to staff up.

Still, the controversial policy, included in House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s package to increase the debt ceiling, is causing some consternation within the Republican conference, with hardliners wanting to include even stricter requirements and with moderate members in swing districts concerned they could face blow back over the issue.

If the House passes the legislation this week, as McCarthy hopes, it is certain not to advance since the White House and Senate Democrats fiercely oppose work requirements, along with other components of the bill. But it serves as a starting point for negotiations with the Biden administration over addressing the debt ceiling. House GOP lawmakers, including some who grew up in families who depended on public assistance, argue that work requirements can lift people out of poverty and end their reliance on the government.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Former Tucker Carlson producer spoke to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace about her lawsuit against Fox News after experiencing a what she alleges was a hostile work environment. Among the things she revealed was the way in which the Fox News host was able to browbeat Republicans into doing whatever he wanted.

Grossberg explained that when she first came to Fox to work with Maria Bartiromo, she felt like it was a positive experience because, "even when I disagreed with her, I think she believed in what she was doing." That was not the case with Carlson.

"When I got to Tucker, it was different," explained Grossberg. "As the texts came out, it revealed my suspicions, he was looking for ratings bait purely and was looking for power. It was a combination of ratings and power and manipulating the audience and manipulating the political system."
Story by Colby Hall

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were stunned to hear Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s comments about Tucker Carlson’s ouster from Fox News. Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, Lavrov brought up the matter of Carlson’s firing without prompting and implied that Carlson’s firing by Fox News was done at the behest of the U.S. government. Mediates Micahel Luciano wrote about his comments on Tuesday:

“Perhaps it would be useful to consider how things are with freedom of speech in the United States,” Lavrov said. “I’ve heard that Tucker Carlson has left Fox News. It’s curious news. What is this related to? One can only guess. But, clearly, the wealth of views in the American information space has suffered as a result.”

Carlson has been more than a critic of U.S. aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. He has demonized Ukraine’s leadership, including President Volodymyr Zelensky by calling him a dictator. Not surprisingly, clips of Carlson have appeared on Russian state-run media. Coming out of the clip, Brzezinski exclaimed, “Wow!” after which Scarborough noted, “it is extraordinary.”
Story by Ellen Chang

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor, received a job offer from a state-run news channel. Tucker Carlson, the ousted anchor of Fox News, was unemployed for less than a day before he received a job offer. RT, the state-run news channel in Russia that was known as Russia Today, made an offer to Carlson on its Twitter account only hours after Fox decided to cancel his role as the anchor.

The Moscow-based news channel tweeted on April 24, "Hey @TuckerCarlson, you can always question more with @RT_com." The channel is banned in the European Union and many other countries. Carlson's rhetoric included conspiracies about the war in Ukraine.
Story by Gideon Rubin

One of the nation’s most powerful Republicans for a second straight year ranked near the bottom for legislative effectiveness among GOP House members, according to a new study. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, ranks 217 out of 220, Cleveland.com reports.

Jordan last year ranked 202 out of 2015 in the same study, which is conducted by theCenter for Effective Lawmaking, through a collaboration between academics at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University.

But Alan Wiseman, one of the study’s creators, acknowledged its limitations, noting that the survey measures how much legislation that lawmakers sponsor gets passed. Wiseman noted that the survey doesn’t measure oversight, which is Jordan’s main focus, the report said.
Story by Sky Palma

The left-leaning advocacy group End Citizens United says three freshman House Republicans have violated federal campaign finance law, the Washington Examiner reported. Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, and Marc Molinaro, all from New York, are being accused of having unlawfully transferred $4,000 combined between their state and federal committees. "The law is intended to prevent corruption and undue influence over our leaders," Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, said in a statement. "These aren’t one-off mistakes; they appear to be calculated moves."
Story by Zeleb.es

This is how much the former president made
Former President Donald Trump made roughly $160 million dollars from his business dealings outside the United States while in office according to a new corruption report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a nonprofit organization that investigates corruption in American politics and they just released a damning report on Trump’s international business dealings while president.
Story by Milla

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg got death threats soon after Donald Trump shared a disturbing post on his social media, Truth Social. Bragg received a letter with white powder and a note, “Alvin: I am going to kill you.” His office had received “offensive or threatening phone calls or emails.” But, Manhattan DA is not the only person who might be in danger.

Trump mocked peaceful protests and called for “destruction”
The former president warned of “potential death and destruction” if he was indicted in his Truth Social post. In it, he also accused “a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA!” Allegedly this part was about the DA. Bragg wrote to his staff, “We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York.”
Story by Alex Henderson

On Monday, April 24, the day's biggest media bombshell was, hands down, Tucker Carlson's totally unexpected departure from Fox News. The news that CNN had fired liberal host Don Lemon also broke that same day, but that story was overshadowed by the news that Rupert Murdoch himself had reportedly decided to fire Carlson despite the fact that he was Fox News' biggest star. Fox News has plenty of hosts who are major figures in right-wing media, from Sean Hannity to Laura Ingraham to Jeanine Pirro. But no one at Fox News generated higher ratings than the incendiary, highly controversial Carlson.

During the George W. Bush years, Carlson, now 53, sometimes expressed sympathy for libertarian ideas and was an admirer of then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). And he was employed by very mainstream outlets, from CNN and MSNBC to PBS. But along the way, Carlson took a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist turn. Carlson often frustrated liberals and progressives during the 2000s; when he was hosting "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Fox News from 2016-2023, he scared them. And to Never Trump conservatives, Carlson came to symbolize everything they considered dangerous about the MAGA movement.
Story by Adam Nichols

Aone-of-its-kind art installation featuring four centuries of literary text is slated for destruction – and protesters claim the "cultural vandalism" is because it could trigger “snowflakes” at next year’s Republican National Convention, the Bulwark reports.

Marty Brooks, the president of the Wisconsin Center District which runs a publicly-funded convention center in Milwaukee, plans to tear down the permanent art display – ostensibly as part of a $456 million expansion before the GOP arrives.

The art, created by sculptor Jill Sebastian when the convention center was built in 1998 and called “Portals and Writings Celebrating Wisconsin Authors,” features work from 48 Wisconsinites and includes work by indigenous and diverse writers, the Bulwark's article entitled "Tearing down art to spare Republican snowflakes' feelings?" says.
Story by Hannah Rabinowitz

After months of legal battles, infighting between defense lawyers and dozens of rejected mistrial motions, the federal criminal trial against five Proud Boys accused of plotting to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, moved to its final stage Monday.

One prosecutor and two defense attorneys gave their closing arguments to the Washington, DC, jury tasked with deciding whether Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean are guilty of several federal crimes, including seditious conspiracy.

The Justice Department’s Conor Mulroe argued that the defendants stirred fellow members of the far-right Proud Boys toward violence in the lead up to January 6 and directed them that day to attack the iconic building.

Attorneys for Nordean and Rehl repeatedly said that the mountains of evidence only showed vulgar, stupid messages from their clients and violence from others in the crowd on January 6 – none of which amounted to the seditious conspiracy charge their clients face.
Story by Rebecca Falconer

The U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment this week — 100 years years after the measure was introduced, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Monday. The big picture: The proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would guarantee equal rights legally, regardless of sex.
Story by Zoe Tillman

(Bloomberg) -- Justice Clarence Thomas said he was advised he didn’t have to disclose private jet flights and luxury vacations paid for by billionaire Harlan Crow because, although a close friend, Crow “did not have business before the court.”  But in at least one case, Crow did.

Bloomberg reviewed dozens of state and federal cases involving companies that the Crow family has owned or had a financial stake in since Thomas’ 1991 confirmation. Nearly all of these disputes played out at the trial and appellate level and didn’t reach the Supreme Court.

In January 2005, though, the court declined to hear an appeal from an architecture firm that wanted more than $25 million from Trammell Crow Residential Co. for allegedly misusing copyrighted building designs. When the court issued a one-sentence order denying the petition, there were no noted recusals — indicating that Thomas participated — and no noted dissents.
The long-time Fox News host was not given a farewell broadcast
Graig Graziosi, Namita Singh

“Blindsided” Tucker Carlson was in the midst of negotiating a new contract with Fox News when he received a call from CEO Suzanne Scott on Monday morning telling him he had been fired from the right-wing network, according to a report.
Story by Christopher Palmeri and Gerry Smith

(Bloomberg) -- Fox News, in announcing Monday that it’s parted ways with Tucker Carlson, is losing a host who brought in millions of viewers but proved too much to handle even for corporate chiefs Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems Inc. uncovered evidence that Carlson insulted his management, colleagues and guests. A still unresolved suit by former Fox producer Abby Grossberg accuses the popular host of misogyny and contributing to a hostile workplace. After Fox agreed to settle Dominion’s defamation case for a record $787.5 million, the Murdochs decided it was time to say goodbye to their star.
Story by Samantha Benitz

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas shut down claims that he may have abused his power by not reporting vacations paid for by a billionaire Republican donor, claiming he was told that would be acceptable and not reportable as long as the individual did not have business before the court. RadarOnline.com has learned Harlan Crow did have at least one time in which he had business before the court, according to a bombshell report published on Monday.
Story by Gideon Rubin

Donald Trump in 2012 allowed a non-binary beauty queen to compete in his Miss Universe competition, a move that comes in stark contrast to the rhetoric he now routinely uses and the current attitude of the Republican party.

Trump in 2012 overturned a decision by the Miss Universe organization disqualifying 23-year-old Jenna Talackova, a Canadian model who the group wanted to ban from the competition, saying she isn’t a “naturally born” female, Fox News reports.

Trump in an announcement that he was allowing Talackova to compete for Miss Canada said the decision brought his group in compliance with Canadian law. "We let her in," Trump said in an April 4, 2012 video.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C. snapped at one of the lawyers of the Proud Boys in court Monday. Lawfare editor Roger Parloff has spent the last 61 days live-tweeting 61 days live-tweeting what he observes in the trial that isn't being streamed to the public, only the audio has been available at times.

The top five members of the Proud Boys that are appearing in court face "a ten-count indictment, the government alleges that five Proud Boy defendants ... conspired to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force," Parloff explained in January when the trial began. The men are former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Monday marked closing statements from the lawyers and theoretically should be the final day of the trial, and the next steps are the jury's decision.
Story by Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY

Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the top-rated cable news host, are "parting ways," the network announced Monday. Carlson's last hosting duty for his prime-time conservative opinion show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" was Friday, Fox said.  An interim show, consisting of rotating Fox News personalities, will fill the 8 ET time slot starting tonight until a new host is named. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor," Fox said.

Carlson, 53, did not telegraph the news on Friday's show, and Fox never gave him the opportunity to address his viewers. Instead, he signed off from what turned out to be his final show with, "We'll be back on Monday; in the meantime have the best weekend."

Carlson became Fox’s most popular personality after replacing Bill O’Reilly, who was fired in 2016 after settling a sexual harassment investigation. He’s also consistently drawn headlines for controversial coverage, most recently airing tapes from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection to minimize the impact of the deadly attack.
Story by Clever Rebel

Carlson's last FOX broadcast was on Friday, the right wing news outlet announced, today. In the early 2000s, Tucker Carlson was already a well-known figure in political commentary, having made a name for himself as a co-host on CNN's "Crossfire." Even back then, his controversial opinions and confrontational style drew criticism from a number of high-profile figures in the entertainment and political worlds.

Among those who took issue with Carlson was Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." In a 2004 appearance on "Crossfire," Stewart criticized Carlson and his co-host, Paul Begala, for their partisan political commentary and accused them of "hurting America." The exchange between Stewart and Carlson went viral and drew widespread attention, with many crediting Stewart with contributing to the eventual cancellation of "Crossfire" later that year.
"We thank him for his service to the network," Fox leadership said.
By Emily Shapiro and Olivia Rubin

TV host Tucker Carlson and Fox News have "agreed to part ways," Fox said in a statement Monday. "We thank him for his service to the network," Fox said in the statement about the top-rated host, which noted that Carlson's last show was on Friday. The network did not provide a reason for Carlson's departure.

The news comes nearly one week after a $787.5 million settlement agreement between the network and Dominion Voting Systems, which had accused Fox of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories that the voting machine company rigged the 2020 presidential election in Joe Biden's favor, in what Dominion claims was an effort to combat concerns over declining ratings and viewer retention.

Ron DeSantis Seeks to Control Disney World , With State Oversight Powers. Associated Press reports that on April 17, Florida announced legislation that will allow the state to oversee rides and the monorail at Disney World. The upcoming bill would remove an exemption Disney has pertaining to ride inspections conducted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Currently, Disney does its own safety inspections. Disney and other experts say that their inspectors are some of the best in the industry. Inspections for the kind of rides at Disney go well beyond county fairs.
‘After 17 years at CNN I would have thought someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly,’ Lemon said
Tom Murray

Don Lemon has been fired by CNN after 17 years. On Monday (24 April), the network host announced that he had “parted ways” from CNN following a string of scandals for the veteran anchor in recent months. “CNN and Don have parted ways,” the network said in a statement.

“Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavours.” Lemon reacted to the news with his own statement on Twitter saying he was left “stunned” after being informed by his agent that CNN had allegedly terminated his contract without informing him.
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