"Where you can find almost anything with A Click A Pick!"
Go to content
US Monthly Headline News February 2023
Story by David Edwards

Colin H. Kahl, under secretary of Defense, called out Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for using "propaganda" from China to question him at a House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. As Gaetz demanded details of U.S. aid to Ukraine, the Florida congressman pointed to a "Global Times investigative report that talks about training" of Ukraine soldiers by the U.S. "Any reason to disagree with that assessment?" Gaetz asked. "I'm sorry, is this the Global Times from China?" Kahl wondered. "No, this is — well, yeah, it might be," Gaetz confirmed.

Fox News Chief Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that some Fox hosts “endorsed” Donald Trump’s election lies, according to new court filings. Murdoch acknowledged in testimony that some of Fox hosts, including Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo specifically pushed the lie. Murdoch’s testimony is part of Dominion Voting’s $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network.
The party of hypocrites is at it again, Republicans accuses the Democrats of weaponization of the government but give Trump a pass on his weaponization of the government.

Story by David Edwards

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) called out House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) because he had no plans to investigate abuses at the Justice Department during the Trump administration. At an Oversight hearing on Tuesday, Democrats argued that a rules package offered by Republicans was "cut and pasted" from the "right-wing echo chamber" and that it was full of "racist tropes."

"I've been concerned about the weaponization of the federal government program," Cohen said. "And I think it was pretty clear during the previous administration, [former Trump attorney] Michael Cohen went to jail for doing what Donald Trump asked him to do. Donald Trump was called Individual 1. He didn't go to jail. He didn't even go to jail when the administration changed, and Merrick Garland came in."

Cohen recalled that Trump's former attorney was forced to return to jail when he tried to write a book about the ordeal. "It's come out; it was the Justice Department that did that," he continued. "Could we go, Mr. Chair, back into those issues and look at the weaponization that occurred during the Trump [administration], particularly that Michael Cohen incident?
Story by Oliver Darcy

Fox News continues to be exposed for the dishonest organization that it is — this time, with the help of its billionaire owner. A Monday filing in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against the right-wing talk channel offered additional revelations — including the fact that Fox Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch admitted in a deposition that some of his top hosts were pushing election lies to his audience.

Murdoch rejected that Fox News, as an entity, endorsed former President Donald Trump’s election lies. But Murdoch conceded that Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs promoted falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest being stolen. “Yes. They endorsed,” Murdoch said, according to the filing, when asked about the hosts’ promotion of false claims about the election.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight,” the media mogul added at another point in the deposition. That’s just one of the several revelations included in Monday’s filing. Here are some additional highlights:
Story by Brad Reed

Awitness called by Arizona Republicans to push baseless claims of mass voter fraud is now has now implicated two Republican state senators in a scheme that he says involves taking bribes from drug cartels. The Arizona Republic reports that Jacqueline Breger, the witness who last week accused multiple state officials of taking bribes in exchange for manipulating statewide elections, was actually relaying the theories of a man named John Thaler, a one-time lawyer from Scottsdale whose law license has been suspended.

The Republic reached out to Thaler to ask him to elaborate on his claims about Arizona officials taking bribes, and he said that indicated that Arizona State Sens. Wendy Rogers and Ken Bennett both possessed "documents that meet the characteristics of those documents used in the money laundering and bribery schemes." Thaler offered no concrete proof of his claims when asked by the newspaper, however.
Oliver Darcy
By Oliver Darcy and Jon Passantino, CNN

New York CNN — Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, acknowledged in a deposition taken by Dominion Voting Systems that some Fox News hosts endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Murdoch’s remarks were made public in a legal filing as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News. In his deposition, Murdoch rejected that the right-wing talk network as an entity endorsed former President Donald Trump’s election lies. But Murdoch conceded that Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs promoted the falsehood about the presidential contest being stolen.

“Some of our commentators were endorsing it,,” Murdoch said, according to the filing, when asked about the talk hosts’ on-air positions about the election. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight,” he added. The filing also revealed that Murdoch referred to some of Trump’s 2020 election lies as “bulls**t and damaging.”
Story by Tommy Christopher

Donald Trump raged at Fox News magnate Rupert Murdoch over revelations from a new filing in the bombshell Dominion defamation suit against the network. Damning comments made by Fox News hosts and executives in private in the aftermath of the election were revealed in a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages. The suit has prompted copious doomsaying by a spectrum of pundits, including Mediaite Editor-in-Chief Aidan McLaughlin and famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.

On Monday afternoon, a new bombshell filing dropped that’s chock full of fresh revelations, including several damning admissions and comments from Murdoch. On Tuesday morning, Trump weighed in on the new filing with a rant trashing Murdoch for “throwing his anchors under the table” and thereby “killing his case and infuriating his viewers” — then spewed a raft of familiar falsehoods about the election:
Story by asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey)

Thousands of student-loan borrowers are finally moving forward with long-awaited debt relief. On Friday evening, federal Judge William Alsup ruled that a settlement he had already approved last year resulting from a lawsuit — Sweet v. Cardona — can move forward, which would give 200,000 borrowers defrauded by the schools they attended $6 billion in debt relief.

This relief has been a long time coming. The lawsuit was first filed in 2019, when the plaintiffs accused former President Donald Trump's Education Department of failing to process their borrower defense claims, which are claims borrowers can file if they believe they were defrauded by their school. Since the lawsuit wasn't resolved under Trump, President Joe Biden took it on and agreed to a settlement to give borrowers relief.
Story by litaliano@insider.com (Laura Italiano,Jacob Shamsian)

It's hard to keep track of Donald Trump's very busy legal docket. The former president — who has officially launched his 2024 presidential bid — is the subject of at least four major investigations into wrongdoing relating to his handling of White House documents, the election, the insurrection, and his finances. The Manhattan District Attorney's office is presenting evidence to a grand jury in connection with Trump's possible role in a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels in 2016, while a state prosecutor in Georgia is weighing if Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election results in that state. The Justice Department is also looking into the 2020 election as well as Trump's possible mishandling of classified documents.
Story by hgetahun@insider.com (Hannah Getahun,Cheryl Teh)

Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate behind the sprawling Fox News media empire, was eager to keep the election-denying MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's advertisements on-air because of how much ad revenue he provided to the network, per a new court filing from Dominion Voting Systems. "The man is on every night. Pays us a lot of money," read a snippet from Murdoch's January deposition in a court filing released on Monday. "At first you think it's comic, and then you get bored."

Murdoch went on to admit in his deposition that he could have pulled Lindell's MyPillow advertisements — but did not. This was even after the pillow CEO made wild, unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud on Fox News' programs, per Dominion's court filing.  "It is not red or blue, it is green," Murdoch said of Lindell during his deposition — presumably a reference to money. Dominion's filing on Monday also alleges that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott sent Lindell gifts and urged various Fox shows to book Lindell to "get ratings." But Lindell told Insider in mid-February that the idea that Fox might have bought him a gift is a "Dominion lie" and that Fox "never sent anything."
Fox News is not news but is the propaganda wing of Putin, Trump and the Republican Party

Story by Alex Griffing

The latest bombshell court filing from Dominion Voting Systems was made public Monday, ahead of the April trial for the company’s $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Included in the filing is a brief section looking at contact between Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and chairman of Fox Corps, and then President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign – specifically Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

The voting technology company is suing Fox News, alleging the network knowingly aired election lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election — falsely implicating Dominion. “Executives at all levels of Fox — both (Fox News Network) and (Fox Corporation) — knowingly opened Fox’s airwaves to false conspiracy theories about Dominion,” Dominion wrote in the unsealed filing Monday. “During Trump’s campaign, Rupert provided Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden’s ads, along with debate strategy. Ex.600, R.Murdoch 210:6-9; 213:17-20; Ex.603 (providing Kushner a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public),” reads the filing.
Fox News is not news just propaganda for Putin, Trump and the right.

Story by Tommy Christopher

A new filing in the bombshell Dominion defamation suit against Fox News shows an anchor got reamed out from the very top over “smug” coverage that was too consistently “anti-Trump.” Damning comments made by Fox News hosts and executives in private in the aftermath of the election were revealed in a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages. The suit has prompted copious doomsaying by a spectrum of pundits including Mediaite Editor-in-Chief Aidan McLaughlin and famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.

On Monday afternoon, a new bombshell filing dropped that’s chock full of fresh revelations. One section details the way then-Fox anchor Leland Vittert — who has since moved on to an anchor role at NewsNation — was targeted for criticism in a pipeline that went from Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott right to the control room because his “anti-Trump” coverage was deemed “smug and condescending”:
Story by Heather Hamilton

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he believes the essence of being a conservative today means recognizing that people’s “God-given rights” are on “loan” to the government. “The foundation of it is understanding the American project,” DeSantis told Fox News host Mark Levin on Sunday. “Our rights come from God, not the government. The founders rejected the divine right of kings.” “We have these God-given rights,” he continued. “We loan power to the government under a Constitution to protect those rights.”

While discussing his new book The Courage to be Free, DeSantis explained that his roots of growing up in “eclectic” Florida with a blue-collar family that held Rust Belt values kept him grounded while attending the liberal classrooms of Yale and Harvard. “It was so different from what I thought was appropriate that I wasn’t influenced by it in terms of it pulling that direction. I rebelled in the other way,” the Republican governor said. “I got through Yale and Harvard and came out more conservative than when I went in.”
Story by Gabriella Ferrigine

Fox News anchor Howard Kurtz said Sunday that the conservative network barred him from covering the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against the company by Dominion Voting Systems. "Some of you have been asking why I'm not covering the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it's absolutely a fair question," Kurtz said during his "MediaBuzz" weekly news segment. "I believe I should be covering it. It's a major media story, given my role here at Fox." "But the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can't talk about it or write about it, at least for now," he added. "I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. If that changes, I'll let you know."
Fox News caught lying to the American people, again.

Story by Justin Baragona

Fox News is refusing to run an ad from political action group MoveOn that accuses the conservative cable giant of “lying to its viewers” over the 2020 election, the progressive organization said on Monday. The commercial, which MoveOn said they hoped to run nationally on the right-wing network, spotlights a slew of texts from the recent legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6-billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. “Texts show they lied to you about the 2020 election for profit,” the ad states while quoting messages from Fox News stars Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as from the network’s owner Rupert Murdoch.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Anewly-elected Republican congressman has admitted to misrepresenting his college major during his congressional campaign, The Washington Post reported Monday. "Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tenn.), who is facing allegations of embellishing his résumé, acknowledged Monday that he misstated the degree he received from Middle Tennessee State University, claiming he learned of the discrepancy only last week after requesting an official copy of his transcript," the Post reports.

"Ogles said he mistakenly stated that he received a degree in international relations. In a statement Monday, he said his degree was for liberal studies. That is a general education degree typically for those who cannot settle on a major." “At the time it was my understanding I had completed my course of study in Political Science and International Relations,” Ogles said. Ogles was elected last year to a Nashville-based seat once held by longtime Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who retired after Republicans in the Tennessee legislature aggressively gerrymandered the district.
Story by insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan,Ayelet Sheffey)

As Congress heads back into session, some Republicans are reportedly contemplating a plan to shave billions of dollars off federal spending by targeting "woke" policies. Some Republicans are reportedly taking inspiration from former President Donald Trump's budget chief Russell Vought. Rep. Jodey Arrington, the chair of the House Budget Committee, told Reuters that the GOP is crafting a budget that is "consistent with what's in his budget."

That budget will shave $150 billion off spending, per Reuters, although Arrington did not specify what's on the chopping block. Broadly, nondefense spending will be in the crosshairs, and Vought told Reuters that $25 billion would be cut from "woke" policies at the Department of Education. Also on Vought's list to cut, according to Reuters and his initial proposal: Funding for housing, and programs from the CDC that are meant to help stop sexually transmitted and chronic diseases.
Republicans 'Weaponized the government while blaming the Democrats for 'Weaponization of the government.

Story by Matthew Chapman

House Republicans are using their new majority to try to strip various civil service protections from government workers and target individual officials and employees in retribution for policies they don't like — and it's drawing increasing outrage from their fellow lawmakers, reported The Washington Post on Monday.

"In recent weeks, House Republicans have passed legislation requiring federal employees to return to the office, arguing that pandemic rules have bled into a permanent state that diminishes productivity," reported Lisa Rein and Jacqueline Alemany. "Lawmakers have voted to rescind $80 billion for the cash-starved IRS to hire 87,000 employees in customer service, technology and audit roles to increase tax compliance of those earning more than $400,000 — claiming the extra staff will unfairly target taxpayers. They’ve allowed House members to reduce or eliminate federal agency programs or slash the salaries of individual employees on a quick vote."

All of this comes as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who now chairs the Judiciary Committee, has sent a wave of subpoenas to agency heads without even asking for their voluntary cooperation first. President Joe Biden, for his part, is almost certain to veto all these bills, and his administration "has signaled that it won’t cooperate with GOP efforts to involve career employees in the hearings."
Fox News is lying to the America people.

Story by Ken Meyer

Fox News has been accused of forbidding a progressive organization from running an ad on the network that accuses their hosts of knowingly amplifying lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Politico Playbook reported that Fox wouldn’t air an ad from the progressive PAC, MoveOn, focusing on the accusations the network faces from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit. The ad gravitates explicitly around the unflattering revelations of leaked emails and text messages from the network’s top brass and most prominent figures.

“Texts show they lied to you about the 2020 election for profit,” the ad states. The video cycles through Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham privately trashing Sidney Powell as a “complete nut,” while Rupert Murdoch and Sean Hannity commented similarly about Rudy Giuliani. The messages came from a recently unsealed filing from Dominion’s defamation suit against Fox News. Since the 2020 election, Dominion has accused Fox of damaging the company’s reputation by airing conspiratorial claims that they rigged the election against former President Donald Trump. While Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, Fox has filed a counterclaim arguing that Dominion has not financially suffered due to the network’s coverage.
If the Trump-Russia Affair was a hoax as Trump says why does he support Putin and Russia over America?

Story by Tom Boggioni

Reacting to a new video compilation of comments former President Donald Trump made starting back in 2018 where he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and cast doubt on appraisals by American intelligence services, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough hammered the former president for his recent "doubling down" on Putin support on the one-year anniversary of the Ukraine invasion. Following the clip, the "Morning Joe" host launched into an epic harangue about Trump's current stance.

"How fascinating and how unpatriotic that Donald Trump sides with Vladimir Putin in 2018," Scarborough began. "He comes back, he backs off of it after being criticized, and now he's back to siding with Vladimir Putin over intel agencies and openly mocking intel agencies." 'When he said what might be the toughest question I was ever asked? He got a laugh from the crowd," he continued. " That tells you exactly where the base is. They think it's funny. They think it's funny that we Americans, that we God-loving, patriot-loving Americans would trust our own professionals that are trying to keep us safe more than the ex-KGB agent."
Story by Ken Meyer

Joe Scarborough led Morning Joe in denouncing Dilbert creator Scott Adams for the “flat-out racism” of his recent comments about Black people. Newspapers around the country have been dropping Dilbert ever since Adams invoked a Rasmussen poll as the pretense for claiming that African Americans are a “hate group” that White people should “escape” from. “Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to White people is to get the hell away from Black people,” Adams said on his YouTube show. “This can’t be fixed. You just have to escape.”

As Morning Joe reviewed the blowback on Monday, Scarborough turned to Al Sharpton to say “this is just racism being called out,” and that Adams is also facing condemnation from opponents of cancel culture. Sharpton agreed, saying Adams “has the right to say” what he said, though Dilbert publishers have the right to reject the cartoonist as a consequence of his comments.

“This is not a question of being taken out of context. This is not a question of saying something that you want to take back. This guy absolutely, unequivocally, advocated ‘Stay away from black people,'” Sharpton said. “For Elon Musk and others to come to his defense makes us really question where their stand is and when do they consider something bigoted and racist? Do you have to use the N-word outright? Even then, they may find a way to justify it.”
Is Elon Musk a white national or just racist? Elon Musk is wrong to call the people who removed a racist; racist, unless he supports the racism the racist guy was saying. Would that not make him a racist or just a racist sympathizer?

By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday accused the media of being racist against whites and Asians after U.S. newspapers dropped a white comic strip author who made derogatory comments about Black Americans. The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and USA Today were among newspapers that canceled the cartoon "Dilbert" after its creator Scott Adams said Black Americans were a hate group and posted racist comments on his YouTube channel on Wednesday.

In replies to tweets about the controversy, the Tesla and Twitter chief executive said the media had long been racist against non-white people but are now "racist against whites & Asians." "Maybe they can try not being racist," Musk tweeted. In response to an account that said white victims of police violence get a fraction of media coverage compared to Black victims, Musk said the coverage is "Very disproportionate to promote a false narrative."
Story by Brittany Bernstein

Hundreds of newspapers across the U.S. will no longer publish the Dilbert comic strip after cartoonist creator Scott Adams said black Americans are a “hate group” and encouraged white Americans to “get the hell away” from them. Adams’s comments came in response to a Rasmussen poll that found only a slight majority of black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be white.”

“If nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people — according to this poll, not according to me, according to this poll — that’s a hate group,” Adams said on his YouTube show on Wednesday. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people . . . because there is no fixing this.” Adams went on to accuse black people of not “focusing on education.”

“I’m also really sick of seeing video after video of black Americans beating up non-black citizens,” he later added. The video sparked widespread backlash, leading a host of newspapers to pull the long-running cartoon, including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The USA Today network, which includes more than 300 newspapers, has canceled the comic strip as well saying it “will no longer publish the ‘Dilbert’ comic due to the recent discriminatory comments by its creator.”
Story by Tom Boggioni

The "staggering volume" of texts from Fox News personalities showing they knew they were lying to their viewers about 2020 election fraud could lead the judge overseeing the $1.6 billion Dominion lawsuits to quickly rule against the conservative network without even going to trial. That is the opinion of legal scholars -- some of whom were stunned by the mountain of evidence presented in the legal brief submitted to the court by Dominion Voting Systems -- who spoke with the Guardian's Charles Kaiser.

With the Fox hosts candidly admitting in private texts that they lied on-air in an effort to drive up their ratings, several of the legal experts suggested Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis could make a landmark ruling and cut to the damages phase. According to noted legal scholar Laurence Tribe, "I have never seen a defamation case with such overwhelming proof that the defendant admitted in writing that it was making up fake information in order to increase its viewership and its revenues. Fox and its producers and performers were lying as part of their business model.”
Fox News accused of lying to its viewers, again

Opinion by Tom Boggioni

Questions continue to be raised over Fox News executives allowing on-air personalities to continue to spout conspiracy rumors about the 2020 presidential election results while at the same time they were privately texting and emailing each other, acknowledging that they were helping to spread lies. With the conservative network now looking like it will be on the losing end of a massive $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, conservative columnist David French suggested Fox employees threw away what little credibility they had for more than just higher ratings and power.

In his column for the Washington Post, he wrote that the pathology of amplifying lies indicates a deeper problem for the network as they deal with the lawsuit and the blowback since the private texts and emails became public in a legal briefing. "There is now compelling evidence that America’s most-watched cable news network presented information it knew to be false as part of an effort to placate an angry audience. It knowingly sacrificed its integrity to maintain its market share," he wrote before asking, "Why?" Writing that the answer to that question "goes deeper" than "universal human temptations," he added that Fox increasingly panders to its audience -- journalistic ethics be damned.
Story by Andrew Stanton

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter expressed her latest criticism against former President Donald Trump on Friday. Coulter, once a vocal Trump supporter, turned against the former president during his White House tenure. She has also continued voicing criticisms about his effectiveness as he again runs in the 2024 GOP presidential primary and following the 2022 midterm elections, when Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed in key races across the country.

Following the midterms, the GOP has grappled with these losses. Republicans won only a narrow victory in the House of Representatives and lost ground in the Senate. Some Republicans have said that the party should move away from Trump, adding that his 2020 election fraud claims are toxic among moderate and swing voters.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Late Friday, Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court in D.C. swatted aside protestations from Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) who was trying to keep the Department of Justice from reviewing over 2,000 documents on his phone related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Perry, who continues to support Donald Trump's assertion that the election was stolen and is reportedly under investigation, claimed that the 2,219 documents on his phone were protected by the “speech or debate” clause in the Constitution which shields members of Congress from a criminal investigation into fulfilling their duties.

However, Judge Howell bluntly disagreed on Friday. "Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court in D.C. released a number of previously sealed opinions after finding that the 'powerful public interest'outweighed the need for secrecy in the constitutional battle over Perry’s claims and the historic investigation," the Washington Post is reporting.

Fox News is on defense and facing over a billion dollars in potential punishment for fueling Donald Trump’s election lies. The CEO of Fox News Suzanne Scott admitting President Biden was legitimately elected despite the network’s coverage. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports on explosive legal filings that show top Fox hosts didn't believe the 2020 election was stolen, as more evidence is expected to be released.
Story by Samaa Khullar

Months after the Justice Department combed through former President Donald Trump's private estate in Mar-a-Lago, another box containing a handful of classified records mysteriously turned up, despite several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides, people familiar with the matter told CNN on Friday. Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigators have spent the past few weeks interviewing a Trump aide who copied classified materials from the box in question, using her phone to transfer them to a laptop. The aide gave a voluntary interview, and prosecutors then subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, one of the sources told CNN.

The classified documents in the box were found in December, after the Department of Justice instructed Trump's legal team to conduct yet another search at the Florida resort. According to people familiar with the search efforts, there was a confusing chain of events that led to the box's discovery. Its contents were uploaded to the cloud, then emailed to a Trump employee, then moved to a secondary offsite location, and finally sent back to a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump's office. The room it ended up in had been searched by the FBI just weeks earlier.
Story by Nick Reynolds

With Republicans and Democrats at the state and federal level pushing bills designed to protect young people from accessing obscene or harmful content on the internet, Big Tech companies are facing a reckoning over child safety. However, some are concerned the very same measures lawmakers are pushing to protect children could erode people's right to privacy and put those they seek to protect at even greater risk of cybercrimes.

Earlier this year, a new law in Louisiana went into effect requiring internet users in the state to provide government identification to prove they're at least 18 years or older before being able to access websites containing pornographic material. Meanwhile, a similar proposal filed by Arizona Republicans this week seeks to go even further, with language so broad critics claim it could ban minors from accessing streaming services like Hulu or Netflix, the Arizona Mirror reported Tuesday.

And as lawmakers pursue broader online safety legislation in Congress, figures like Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, have introduced bills barring anyone under the age of 16 from signing up for social media accounts on Instagram or TikTok amid growing concern over social media's impacts on children's mental health.
Opinion by Margaret Sullivan

If you’ve paid even the slightest attention to how Fox News operates, the recent revelations from a legal filing come as no huge surprise. From the moment it was founded in the mid-1990s, Fox has been a partisan outlet – very much by the design of its founder, Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and its founding chief executive, Roger Ailes. It never was the “fair and balanced” news source that its motto claimed. Calling it “conservative” has always been putting things far too mildly; but for a time, it observed a modicum of journalistic standards.

But Fox became much more extreme over the years, moving well outside the journalistic mainstream and turning into a propaganda arm of the US right wing. As it stoked outrage on immigration, race, vaccines and abortion, it dedicated itself to maximizing market share and seldom letting the truth get in the way. Through a strange alchemy, it transformed polarization into profits and, in the process, harmed our democracy and culture.

But paradoxically, it is shocking to read the specific details that have emerged from a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against Fox by Dominion Voting Systems. (The complaint is that Fox allowed damaging lies to circulate about how the election was rigged, with Dominion supposedly flipping votes from Trump to Biden.) The shock doesn’t come from what these details indicate about the network’s mission; that much we already knew.
It is not small government or good government when the GOP is forcing companies to do business the way the GOP wants. The GOP wants a nanny State in which they control what people and business do.

Story by Justin Baragona

Issuing an unvarnished threat to DirecTV on Friday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) claimed he told the pay-TV provider to quickly bring pro-Trump channel Newsmax back to its lineup—“or else.” Comer’s unsubtle attempt at government interference comes less than a month after he promised to investigate DirecTV for dropping the conservative network last month. While Newsmax and its Republican allies have relentlessly accused the satellite carrier of “political discrimination” by “censoring” right-wing speech, DirecTV has said the channel is peddling “false claims” over a standard business dispute stemming from Newsmax’s demands for increased license fees.

“I’m very concerned,” Comer said Friday on Newsmax’s John Bachman Now. “I’m very upset that DirecTV does not have Newsmax on there. I’ve been in constant communication with the leadership at AT&T and DirecTV. I have strongly encouraged them to meet with your CEO, Mr. [Chris] Ruddy, to get this worked out or else!” Saying his GOP colleagues on the House Oversight Committee are “very passionate” about the situation, Comer wondered if DirecTV and AT&T executives “really want to go in front of” his committee considering how Republicans have treated witnesses in recent hearings. “We’re all huge fans of Newsmax,” Comer declared. “We don’t like to see Newsmax not being offered on DirecTV, especially considering Newsmax is the, I think, the fourth highest-rated news show on TV now.”
Fox News caught lying to the American people, again.

Story by Oliver Darcy

Fox News is in serious hot water. That’s what several legal experts told CNN this week following Dominion Voting Systems explosive legal filing against the right-wing talk channel, revealing the network’s executives and hosts privately blasted the election fraud claims being peddled by Donald Trump’s team, despite allowing lies about the 2020 contest to be promoted on its air.

While the legal experts cautioned that they would like to see Fox News’ formal legal response to the filing, they all indicated in no uncertain terms that the evidence compiled in Dominion’s legal filing represents a serious threat to the channel. “It’s a major blow,” attorney Floyd Abrams of Pentagon Papers fame said, adding that the “recent revelations certainly put Fox in a more precarious situation” in defending against the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.
Story by Stephen Neukam

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will boycott media appearances on NBC News and MSNBC shows, according to his press team, until one of the network’s star reporters apologizes for a question she posed about the governor’s education policies. “There will be no consideration of anything related to NBC Universal or its affiliates until and at least Andrea Mitchell corrects the blatant lie she made about the governor,” DeSantis’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said in an email to the network that he posted on Twitter.

The “lie” that the DeSantis camp is protesting is a question Mitchell put to Vice President Harris last week, in which she asked: “What does Governor Ron DeSantis not know about Black history and the Black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?” Mitchell later said her questioning was “imprecise” but did not explicitly apologize. The Hill has reached out to NBC for further comment. Griffin said NBC and its affiliates must “display a consistent track record of truthful reporting” before DeSantis, who has had an often acrimonious relationship with the mainstream media, agrees to future appearances.
Some on the right claim to be patriots but are really Anti-American and Pro-Putin.
Story by Alex Griffing

Tucker Carlson had controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on his program Thursday night, not to discuss her plans for a “national divorce,” but to lay into “the idiots” in Congress “leading us into World War III” by supporting Ukraine. Greene sparked fury online as she described the conflict as “this war against Russia in Ukraine” – seemingly casting Russia as the victim and not the sole aggressor in the devastating conflict.

Carlson began the segment by slamming Republican leaders like Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who support military aid to Ukraine. “Of course, only a very tiny number of Republicans voted to stop this insanity before it destroys the economy of the United States and triggers World War III,” Carlson said, referring to a recent vote on additional aid. “And they’ve been punished for it. And a lot of Republicans care because on MSNBC, if you’re against World War III, you’re an agent of Putin. Watch,” Carlson said before rolling a clip of MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace.

“The point is Marjorie Taylor Greene and Vladimir Putin, and too often than I think anyone would like to acknowledge, Tucker Carlson, are all on the same page,” Wallace concluded in the clip after listing the GOP House members who voted against the aid.
The right is showing you why the founding fathers believed in separation of Church and State.

Story by LGBTQNation

AFlorida Republican introduced a bill that would make it easier for religious people to sue those who call them out as homophobic or transphobic, a bill built on a suggestion from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). State Rep. Alex Andrade (R) filed H.B. 991 on Tuesday. The bill would make it easier to sue journalists, publications, or social media users for defamation if they accuse someone of racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia. The bill specifically says that publications can’t use truth as a defense when it comes to reporting on people’s anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments by citing the person’s “constitutionally protected religious expression or beliefs” or “a plaintiff’s scientific beliefs.” Tucker Carlson, Matt Walsh, Steven Crowder, and more all agree that mass shootings are a reasonable response to non-existent “child genital mutilation.”
Opinion by James Downie

Have you heard about the Republican representative accused of an embellished biography? No, not George Santos, who lied about graduating from Baruch, working on Wall Street and lending his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars. No, not Anna Paulina Luna, whose friends and extended family dispute her accounts of past traumas, including an alleged “home invasion” and an impoverished childhood. No, the one who, according to a local television station, falsely claimed to be “an economist, a nationally recognized expert in tax policy and health care, a trained police officer, even an expert in international sex crimes.”

That would be Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who in recent weeks became the third of the 40 members in the House GOP’s freshman class to face questions about their biographies. Nashville’s WTVF has uncovered multiple misrepresentations from Ogles that rival the better known fabrications of Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. On several occasions, including his first hearing on the House Financial Services Committee, Ogles referred to himself as an economist, even though he had no academic or job training in the discipline. His closest claim to expertise was working as a lobbyist and staffer for two conservative groups, though there’s no evidence he produced any economic research.
Regulations saves lives, Deregulation puts people at risk and kills people. Republicans want to Deregulate putting Americans at risk for injury or death.

Story by esnodgrass@insider.com (Erin Snodgrass)

Donald Trump brought his 2024 presidential campaign to East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after a cataclysmic train derailment prompted an environmental disaster in the small town following the release of toxic chemicals.

The former president's visit to the northeastern village preempted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's arrival by one day, and Trump relished every opportunity to castigate his Democratic successors, saying Buttigieg "should have already been here," and commanding President Joe Biden to "get over here," according to local reports.
Story by insider@insider.com (Cheryl Teh)

Sen. Mitt Romney did not mince words when he weighed in on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's President's Day pitch to divide the US into red and blue states. "I think Abraham Lincoln dealt with that kind of insanity," Romney told reporters in Utah on Tuesday, per The Salt Lake Tribune. "We're not going to divide the country. It's united we stand and divided we fall." Romney also alleged that fringe members of the GOP are using crazy ideas like secession as a cynical way to grift money from their supporters.

"There are some people in my party and the other party that say things to try and get a headline and get people to send them money. And that happens to be in today's 'loony left,' or I should say 'loony right,'" Romney said, per The Salt Lake Tribune. The congresswoman responded to Romney's jab in an interview with the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
Story by Lee Moran

Jon Stewart compared and contrasted Fox News and InfoWars host Alex Jones — and suggested Jones is a “far less pernicious influence” on America than Rupert Murdoch’s conservative network. On the latest episode of his podcast, “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” the comedian acknowledged Jones’ history of pushing conspiracy theories and defaming the families of the Sandy Hook victims, but then argued people know what Jones does and who he is.

“As a cultural pathogen, Fox News is far more powerful, far more devious, far more pernicious and has created far more damage than Alex Jones ever will,” Stewart told University of Utah law professor RonNell Andersen Jones. “And at least Alex Jones gives you supplements to help offset the damage,” Stewart jokingly added, referencing Jones’ penchant for hawking dietary aides. “Alex Jones is a wolf in wolf’s clothing,” Stewart said during a lengthy discussion about defamation law and the falsehoods knowingly peddled by personalities on Fox. “Fox News is the opposite,” he added.
Story by Maya Boddie

Florida GOP State Rep. Alex Andrade proposed a bill that would simplify the process for fellow Republican officials, like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to file defamation lawsuits against media and other "critics," Truthout reports.

Per Tampa Bay Times, Andrade's legislation reflects one of DeSantis' "key priorities." Regarding defamation law, the United States Supreme Court New York Times v. Sullivan decision states, according to Tampa Bay Times, for one "to win damages from a defamation case, public figures — i.e., famous people, elected officials, etc. — have to prove publishers disseminated information knowing it was false, or with 'reckless disregard' for the truth." Proving the outlet published false information is not enough.
Story by Hayes Brown • Yesterday 2:31 PM

Russ Vought, budget director in the Trump administration, has become a driving force behind House Republicans’ hostage strategy for the debt ceiling, The Washington Post reported last weekend. The vision he’s selling is one where brave conservatives finally manage to decimate the federal government without deep cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. But even a quick glance at his pitch shows that he’s less trailblazer and more Pied Piper, luring the GOP to what will certainly be disaster.

Since leaving the White House, Vought has been busy running a think tank called the Center for Renewing America, which has a staff packed with other former Trump administration B-listers slash far-right luminaries. (Who knew that Kash Patel, Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Clark were all officemates now?) From that post, Vought’s been shopping around a 10-year budget plan that he claims solves the math problem that Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has faced in trying to present a set of demands to Democrats in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

While speaking to Fox News' Sean Hannity former Vice-President Mike Pence said that he had met with Putin face-to-face and told the Russian President "things he didn't like."
Story by By Kyle Cheney

Atop lieutenant of the Proud Boys’ chairman, Enrique Tarrio, described on Wednesday a growing desperation among the group’s leaders as Jan. 6, 2021, approached and then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results sputtered.

That’s when the group’s thoughts turned to “all-out revolution,” according to Jeremy Bertino, the Justice Department’s star witness in the seditious conspiracy trial of Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders, who are charged with orchestrating a violent attempt to derail the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Story by Candice Ortiz

Fresh off her widely-panned tweet calling for a “national divorce,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is proposing a temporary voting ban on Democrats who move to red states. Tuesday, she appeared on The Charlie Kirk Show to elaborate on her idea and explain how she would keep red and blue states separated. A clip from their conversation began to circulate on Twitter via Jason Campbell.

“A national divorce is not a civil war. It’s actually separating by red states and blue states and making state rights and state power a lot stronger than it is right now,” Greene said. “It would be shrinking the federal government, for example, we can take education. Well, if we have a national divorce, there’s no need for the Department of Education. Red states and Blue States would be in control of the education in each state,” she explained. Greene also tweeted out her proposal in a lengthy thread.
Story by John Bowden

Agrand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, has recommended multiple criminal charges as a result of an investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In an interview, the jury foreperson told The New York Times that the list of charges recommended was “not short”.

Much like the city of Detroit, also a target of Mr Trump’s false claims of voter fraud, Fulton County’s population is majority-Black and was a key region for the Biden campaign’s voter turnout efforts throughout 2020. The surge of Democratic votes in those regions were enough to flip two states, Georgia and Michigan, that voted for Mr Trump in 2016 – a costly blow in the former president’s fight for the Electoral College.

But it was Republican officials, including Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who were the target of Donald Trump’s overtures in the days following the 2020 election as he desperately sought to change the results. A conference call between the White House, Mr Trump’s lawyers, and Georgia state officials on 2 January 2021 has now become a crucial piece of evidence in the grand jury investigation into Mr Trump and his legal team after it first sent shockwaves through the media and political class.
Story by sbaker@businessinsider.com (Sinéad Baker)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene defended her position that the US should be split up into separate "red" and "blue" states by saying another civil war is looming. The far-right Republican appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, where host Sean Hannity questioned her about her position, and how division in the US could be healed without a split. Greene responded by saying that she doesn't want a civil war, but that the country was moving towards one and action needs to be taken.

"The last thing I ever want to see in America is a civil war. No one wants that — at least everyone I know would never want that — but it's going that direction, and we have to do something about it," she said. Greene also claimed that everyone she talks to is "sick and tired and fed up with being bullied by the left, abused by the left, and disrespected by the left." "Our ideas, our policies and our ways of life have become so far apart that it's just coming to that point," she added.
Story by Ryan Bort

Donald Trump spent $10 million of his political action committee’s money to pay for his personal legal bills in 2022, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The Times notes Trump’s Save America PAC spent $16 million total on legal payments, and that although some of that money went to lawyers representing Trump allies, the majority of it went to lawyers representing Trump himself as the former president has fought a variety of investigations. The $10 million figure represents nearly 20 percent of the PAC’s total expenditures.

It’s unclear how Trump’s 2024 presidential candidacy will impact his ability to use political donations to handle his personal legal needs. The Federal Election Commission prohibits declared candidates from using campaign funds for personal use, but Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center told the Times that the FEC doesn’t always enforce its rules, and that there’s a “gray area” regarding what is allowed.

Trump has needed as much cash as he can get to pay lawyers representing him as he’s tried to ward off investigations into fraud within the Trump Organization (by the state of New York), whether he meddled in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election (by the Fulton County DA’s office), his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House (the federal government), his potential role in overturning the 2020 election and fomenting an insurrection at the Capitol (the federal government again).
Opinion by Zeeshan Aleem

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has reportedly shared over 40,000 hours of U.S. Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. If you thought the right’s attitude toward Jan. 6 was worrisome before, it’s likely about to get worse. Carlson is the most influential MAGA-aligned pundit in the country, and he can use this footage to do huge damage to public memory of one of the most brazen strikes against democracy in American history.  

Axios reported Monday that McCarthy’s office has been sharing a huge trove of raw video footage with Carlson since early February, and excerpts from the footage are expected to air in the coming weeks. Carlson appears to have admitted to the arrangement through his statement to Axios. “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6. By definition, this video will reveal it. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that,” Carlson said. The problem is that Carlson is not an honest person.

New evidence from a defamation lawsuit reveals Fox hosts and staff secretly viewed Trump’s election lies as “mind-blowingly nuts," “reckless” and "insane" while promoting the claims and related guests on air. MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber reports on the new evidence, the legal issues in the case, Fox's defense that it was reporting on “newsworthy” claims, and why the internal messages cast many claims in a new light
Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden by all accounts was having a quiet weekend at the White House, joining his wife Jill Biden for dinner at a restaurant on a rare outing in Washington on Saturday.

But behind the scenes, officials at the White House and other agencies were planning intensively for Biden to make an unannounced trip to Kyiv to show solidarity with Ukraine days before the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion. After months of planning, Biden on Friday decided to go ahead with the trip, according to the White House.
Story by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

AGeorgia grand jury is concerned witnesses lied in their investigation of former President Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to interfere in the state's 2020 election, raising the specter of potential charges.

Descriptions of the alleged lies could be unveiled Thursday, when parts of the grand jury's long-awaited report on the Trump probe is made public. Though the witnesses won't be identified and no one has been charged, prosecutors could pursue perjury charges as leverage to broaden the investigation, according to legal experts.

Descriptions of the alleged lies could be unveiled Thursday, when parts of the grand jury's long-awaited report on the Trump probe is made public. Though the witnesses won't be identified and no one has been charged, prosecutors could pursue perjury charges as leverage to broaden the investigation, according to legal experts.
Story by Virginia Chamlee

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who has, in recent years, made headlines for echoing Donald Trump's false election claims, sparks a common response among much of the public these days. Watching the former mayor at press conferences delivered in a landscaping company's parking lot, or while hair dye gathers in beads at his temples and slowly trickles down his face, many find themselves wondering: How could America's Mayor — a man revered as a hero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — have fallen so far?

A new four-part documentary series called When Truth Isn't Truth: The Rudy Giuliani Story explores that narrative, delving into Giuliani's early days as a prosecutor and his more recent activities with Team Trump, to demonstrate that "America's Mayor" has always been a controversial figure who never shies away from the limelight, even if it means skirting the law. In the series, friends of Giuliani's are heard calling him a "crusader of truth." Former N.Y.C. Mayor Bill de Blasio calls him "the antichrist." Those altogether different evaluations of Giuliani, says series director Rebecca Gitlitz, highlight just how divisive — and complicated — the man is.
Story by hgetahun@insider.com (Hannah Getahun)

Immediately after leaving the White House, former Senior Adviser Jared Kushner created a company that would eventually become a private equity firm with ties to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But because of SEC rules on reporting assets from investors of private equity funds, Kushner was able to legally conceal the identity of his investors and list them only as "non-United States persons" according to a new report from the Washington Post. The New York Times reported in April 2022 that Kushner — who worked on Middle East policy under former President Donald Trump — was able to secure over $2.5 billion in funds for his company Affinity Partners.

Kushner also reportedly tried to leverage his relationship with other Middle Eastern countries like the United Arab Emirates to secure funds for his firm, but this came with little success. The largest share of money came from the $620 billion Public Investment Fund led by MBS, who personally overstepped recommendations by a Saudi panel advising him against investing in the firm, the Times reported. In 2018, MBS reportedly bragged that Kushner was "in his pocket."
Story by Peter Wade

While in the White House, Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner cultivated close ties with the Saudi regime, and it’s paying off in the form of billions of Saudi dollars flowing into the two men’s post-presidency businesses. This is raising questions about how Trump and Kushner may have used their positions in government to ensure they profited when re-entering the private sector. With Trump’s announcement he is running for president again, the Saudi ties present a potential major conflict of interest, The Washington Post reports.

“The financial links between the Saudi royal family and the Trump family raise very serious issues,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told the Post. “When you factor in Jared Kushner’s financial interests, you are looking right at the cat’s cradle of financial entanglements.” One day after his White House job ended, Kushner started a company that later became a private equity firm. That firm accepted $2 billion in funding from a state-owned sovereign wealth fund chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But the source of those funds was not immediately made public, due to the way the firm was structured, the Post reported, citing previously unreported details from Securities and Exchange Commission forms. The House Oversight committee in 2022, when Democrats had the majority, launched an investigation into the Saudi government’s investments in Kushner’s business.
Story by Heather Digby Parton

Last week featured the first of what promises to be many public hearings about President Biden's son Hunter, whom the new GOP House majority vows to investigate for the next two years. Going after what they all now casually call "The Biden Crime Family" is their number one priority. That first hearing was about a now infamous New York Post story about the exceedingly weird "discovery" of Hunter Biden's laptop that Twitter initially suppressed only to allow back on the website just 24 hours later. This incident has become evidence, if you want to call it that, that proves Twitter was working on behalf of the Biden campaign and its alleged allies in the woke FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to cover up the Bidens' corruption.

That hearing fizzled out, however, when it was pointed out that virtually everyone in politics, most especially Trump and his administration, were constantly asking Twitter to remove tweets they didn't want widely seen. In the case of Hunter Biden's laptop, Twitter made the decision itself. As it happened, the Biden campaign did seek to keep the nude pictures of Hunter which had been found on the laptop off the website, just as Trump had requested that Twitter remove a tweet from Chrissy Teigen in which the model called Trump a "p*ssy *ss b**ch."
Story by Travis Gettys

Donald Trump's campaign paid researchers to prove his election fraud claims in the final weeks of 2020 but were unable to find the evidence he sought, and a legal expert analyzed the significance of these new revelations. Berkeley Research Group studied presidential election results in six states looking for evidence of fraud or other irregularities to present in court challenges ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection, but their findings were never released because the firm disputed Trump's theories about his loss to Joe Biden.

"It is important evidence for the special counsel to have because when you're talking -- and we've talked for months now about the fact that prosecutors that will have to prove that the former president knew he had lost but, nonetheless, carried out the conduct connected to Jan. 6 and his effort to prevent certification of the vote," legal analyst Joyce Vance told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "The way prosecutors do that isn't just with one piece of evidence, what you really need is layer upon layer of circumstantial evidence." Prosecutors must show that Trump knew he lost, and Vance said these new reports might accomplish that.
Story by Gibson Precious

Black ranchers who have documented the racial harassment they’ve endured were arrested Monday by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. For months, married couple Courtney and Nicole Mallery, who own acres of land in east El Paso County in Colorado, have documented the discrimination they’ve faced from white neighbors. They were thrust into the spotlight in January when a story published by the Ark Republic highlighted how their animals were brutally killed and racists vandalized their property while the Sheriff’s Office has seemingly turned a blind eye. However, with the Mallery’s Monday arrest, it appears law enforcement has picked a side.

The Mallerys have a restraining order against neighbors Teresa and Bonnie Clark for harassing them. The Clarks have a protective order against the Clarks. However, according to the arrest documents, Deputy Sergeant Emery Gerhart says it was the Mallery’s that frequently bothered their neighbors. Gerhart claims a video shows Nicole stopping her car in front of the Clark property. She then exits and places her hands in the air saying, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” In another event, Nicole is seen on video using a loudspeaker to address Clark, insinuating that she that she should get ready “for Heaven.” Probably the most damning evidence against the Black couple was “unusual wiring coming from one of the transformers on one of the power poles.” The South East Power Company Association confirmed the power hook-up was not conducted by them.
Republican attacks on Woke, CRT, black history, LGBT and banning books are an all-out assault on the 1st amendment and free speech.

Story by Ray Hartmann

One of the most inspiring baseball stories ever told might not be suitable for Florida public school libraries under the rule of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The book, “Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates,” is among the more than 1 million titles that “have been covered or stored and paused for student use” in Florida, NBC News reported. The freeze follows the Florida “Stop W.O.K.E. Act” that DeSantis signed in 2022.

The book about Clemente’s life by Jonah Winter and Raul Colon is not alone. Other books about Latino figures, such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the late Afro-Cuban salsa single Celia Cruz, have the same frozen status, NBC reported. Clemente, an Afro-Puerto Rican widely regarded as among the top tier of all-time baseball greats, died at the age of 38 in 1972, when his plane crashed off the coast of Puerto Rico as he was delivering relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
Story by tmitchell@insider.com (Taiyler Simone Mitchell)

Hunter Biden's attorney sent letters this week demanding that at least 14 individuals involved in publicizing and politicizing the contents of his laptop without his permission preserve documents and data in case of future litigation. According to Politico, letters were sent to former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Giuliani's attorney Robert Costello, and Brian Della Rocca, the attorney who represents the former owner of the computer repair shop where Hunter Biden's laptop was sent in 2019.

Former President Donald Trump's former political adviser Roger Stone and exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui also received a letter, according to Mother Jones, but it's unclear who else it was sent to. "You have made various statements and engaged in certain activities by your own admission, or that have been publicly reported in the media, concerning our client, Robert Hunter Biden," Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell wrote in two of the letters, one of which was obtained by Politico and the other obtained by Mother Jones. "This letter constitutes notice that a litigation hold should be in effect for the preservation and retention of all records and documents related to Mr. Biden."

CNN's Abby Phillip and a panel of journalists discuss Republican-led hearings in Congress investigating Twitter
Story by By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Florida Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna was outed by The Washington Post on Friday for lying about her Jewish heritage in a previous interview with the Jewish Insider in November 2022. Not only is Luna almost certainly not Jewish, but also according to several family members, reports the Washington Post, Luna's paternal grandfather Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s. "I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father,” Luna had told the Jewish Insider, clarifying that she identifies as a Christian. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi."

The Insider had interviewed Luna in reaction to the fact that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, known for her "Jewish space laser" conspiracy, had endorsed Luna's candidacy for Congress. "If she were antisemitic," asked Luna after claiming Ashkenazi roots, "why did she endorse me?" “I in no way, shape or form would ever put myself in a position where I’m hanging out with someone like that, and so I just don’t see that Marjorie Taylor Greene is that person,” said Luna told the Insider. “If I see it happening on the right, I’m the first person to condemn it and say, like, ‘Hey, that’s not cool. I don’t align with that.’”
Story by BethAnn Mayer

It looks like the home improvement giant Home Depot Canada could use a little sprucing up. According to reports from our neighbors to the north, Home Depot constantly shared customers’ data with meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, without getting the appropriate consent, per an investigation by the federal privacy commissioner. “It is unlikely that Home Depot customers would have expected that their personal information would be shared with a third-party social media platform simply because they opted for an electronic receipt,” commissioner Philippe Dufresne said in a press release on Thursday, Jan. 26.

Dufresne went into further detail at a press conference, calling it a violation of Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), a law aimed at protecting data privacy by placing rules on how organizations can collect, use, and share information. Basically, Home Depot Canada broke it. “They did not obtain valid, meaningful consent,” said Dufresne, who warned other companies using similar practices that they need to stop. “This report is a reminder to all companies. … Our sense is this technique is…widely used.”
Story by Alice Cattley

How Frederick Trump changed the course of America
Donald Trump might seem as all-American as it’s possible to be, but just over 150 years ago the Trump clan lived modestly in the German state of Bavaria. The family real estate empire was kickstarted by the former US president’s paternal grandfather Frederick, who emigrated to America aged 16. From running a brothel to succumbing to one of the world’s deadliest pandemics, read on to discover the incredible story of the man who bulit the foundations of the Trump business empire. All dollar values in US dollars.
Story by By HARM VENHUIZEN, Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Recent revelations about Republican election strategies targeting minority communities in Wisconsin's biggest city came as no surprise to many Black voters. A Wisconsin election commissioner bragged about low turnout in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods during last year’s elections. Weeks later, an audio recording surfaced that showed then-President Donald Trump’s Wisconsin campaign team laughing behind closed doors about efforts to reach Black voters in 2020. Many people who voted this past week in the state's primary election said they had long felt targeted by Republicans. The difference now is the public display of strategies that at best ignore the priorities of Black voters and at worst actively look to keep them from voting.

“It’s a plan that they devised and carried out with quite a lot of precision,” said lifelong Milwaukee resident Dewayne Walls, 63. “It’s a repeatable pattern that’s going to continue to happen over and over as long as they have that plausible deniability and as long as they have the power in Madison” — the state capital. Walls and other Black voters said they are tired of the countless hurdles that disproportionately try to keep them from being heard at the ballot box. Voters said their experiences with the GOP have been as voices to silence, not to win over.
Story by David Edwards

ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Republican House Oversight Chair James Comer (KY) if he would investigate Saudi funds provided to former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that Kushner secured over $2 billion, mainly from Sauri Arabia, after Trump left office.

Stephanopoulos wondered if Comer would take time out of his investigation of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, to probe Kushner's foreign business dealings. "It's clear that you're going to be looking at Hunter Biden," the host said. "I want to put up a front-page story from the Washington Post detailing Jared Kushner's ties to the Saudis." "We know that former President Trump has also received funds related to the Saudis' golf tour," he added. "Will you be investigating that as well?"
Story by Ray Hartmann

Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign commissioned an outside research firm to prove electoral fraud claims, but its work never saw the light of day after no evidence was found to support those claims, the Washington Post reported in an exclusive story today. The campaign hired Berkeley Research Group to study the 2020 results in six states “looking for fraud and irregularities to highlight in public and in the courts,” the Post reported. That study, for which the Trump campaign paid more than $600,000, was conducted in the final weeks of December 2020. The Trump campaign “never released the findings because the firm disputed many of his theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election, according to four people familiar with the matter,” the Post reported. Its sources indicated that it had been a serious undertaking.
CNN-News18

A U.S. fighter jet on Friday (February 10) shot down over Alaska a high-altitude object that was the size of a small car, on the order of President Joe Biden, the White House said on Friday.
Story by Susan Rinkunas

By now, many people know about serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) who made up almost his entire resume and claimed to be Jewish on the campaign trail. He’s facing various investigations and stepped down from his committee assignments but is still somehow in Congress. And now, the House GOP appears to have another fabulist on their hands!

According to a damning story in the Washington Post, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is an Air Force veteran and former Obama supporter who used to go by Anna Paulina Mayerhofer before she switched parties to run for Congress. She’s now a member of the House Freedom Caucus and has argued that House members should be able to carry firearms to committee meetings.

Luna claimed on the campaign trail that while she is a Christian, her father, George Mayerhofer, raised her as a Messianic Jew and that she’s part Ashkenazi Jewish. (Messianic Jews identify as Jewish but believe Jesus is the Messiah.) She said these things during an interview with Jewish Insider in which she stood by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who had made antisemitic comments. “MTG did endorse me, and I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father,” Luna said. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi. If she were antisemitic, why did she endorse me?”
Story by Michael Luciano

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump turned over to the government a folder containing classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate, ABC News reported on Friday. Sources told the outlet a laptop belonging to a current aide to Trump was also given to federal officials. James Trusty, an attorney for Trump said the documents in question had been copied electronically to the computer.

ABC News reported:
Sources said the discovery occurred in mid-January as Trump’s team was searching through additional boxes amid the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to have Trump’s attorneys verify that Trump no longer still has classified documents in his possession. The material was discovered in the Mar-a-Lago complex, and not in a storage facility within the complex that housed hundreds of classified documents before them being seized in August 2022, the sources said.
ABC News

The FBI found one more classified document in a consensual search of former Vice President Mike Pence's home in Indiana Friday following the discovery of several documents with classification markings last month, a spokesperson for the former vice president and sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. After a five-hour search of Pence's home, federal agents recovered one document with classified markings and six additional pages without any markings, according a spokesperson for the former vice president. The Department of Justice had been in contact with Pence's legal team to schedule the search and Pence's aides agreed to it.
Story by Rebecca Shabad

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Friday afternoon shot down a "high-altitude object" flying over Alaskan airspace that the Department of Defense was tracking over the last 24 hours, National Security Council official John Kirby confirmed at the White House. "The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight. Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object and they did and it came inside our territorial waters and those waters right now are frozen," Kirby told reporters at the White House briefing. Fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command took down the object "within the last hour," Kirby said around 2:30 p.m. ET.
Story by Michael Luciano

The White House quote-tweeted a Fox News story saying the White House “tripled down” on President Joe Biden’s “false claim” about Social Security, and posted audio of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calling for the program to be privatized. The White House released a statement on Thursday morning repeating Biden’s remarks in the State of the Union address that “some Republicans” want to cut Social Security.

Last month, the leader of the 160-member House Republican Study Committee, which endorsed raising the retirement age for Social Security, didn’t rule out that possibility. “We have no choice but to make hard decisions,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK). “Everybody has to look at everything.” The Fox News story seized on a line in the White House’s statement. “For years, Republican Members of Congress have repeatedly tried to cut Medicare and Social Security, move toward privatizing one or both programs, and raise the Social Security retirement age and Medicare eligibility age,” it read.
Are Republicans stupid 14 years olds cannot drive, cannot vote, cannot drive but can carry guns? Instead of kids fighting, they be shooting each other?

Story by Graeme Massie

Missouri’s Republican-controlled state House has voted against banning children from openly carrying guns on public land without adult supervision. The proposal was defeated by a vote of 104-39, with only one Republican voting to support the ban. The measure was part of a long debate in the House about ways to combat crime, particularly in the St Louis area of the state. In 2017 lawmakers in the state allowed people to carry concealed firearms in most places without first obtaining a permit.
Story by By JILL COLVIN and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI searched former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home Friday as part of a classified records probe, according to two people familiar with the search. The people were not authorized to discuss the law enforcement action and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The search followed the discovery of documents with classified markings by attorneys last month.

The FBI had already taken possession of what Pence’s lawyer described to the National Archives as a "small number of documents" that had been “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Pence's Indiana home at the end of the Trump administration. The search Friday was described as consensual and came after an extensive back-and-forth between Pence’s legal team and the FBI. A member of Pence’s legal team was at the home and expected the search to take several hours, according to one of the people familiar with the discussions. That person added that the FBI was being given unrestricted access to the home.
Story by Gerald West, Senior Professor of Biblical

Pope Francis was recently asked about his views on homosexuality. He reportedly replied: This (laws around the world criminalising LGBTI people) is not right. Persons with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God loves them. God accompanies them … condemning a person like this is a sin. Criminalising people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice. This isn’t the first time Pope Francis has shown himself to be a progressive leader when it comes to, among other things, gay Catholics. It’s a stance that has drawn the ire of some high-ranking bishops and ordinary Catholics, both on the African continent and elsewhere in the world.

Some of these Catholics may argue that Pope Francis’s approach to LGBTI matters is a misinterpretation of Scripture (or the Bible). But is it? Scripture is particularly important for Christians. When church leaders refer to “the Bible” or “the Scriptures”, they usually mean “the Bible as we understand it through our theological doctrines”. The Bible is always interpreted by our churches through their particular theological lenses. As a biblical scholar, I would suggest that church leaders who use their cultures and theology to exclude homosexuals don’t read Scripture carefully. Instead, they allow their patriarchal fears to distort it, seeking to find in the Bible proof-texts that will support attitudes of exclusion. There are several instances in the Bible that underscore my point.
Once again, republicans caught lying to the American people.

Story by Jim Newell

In early 2022, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the Republican Senate campaign arm, released what he called an “11 Point Plan to Save America.” One year later, one specific dim element of that plan—a proposal that all laws, including Social Security and Medicare, would expire in five years unless reapproved—is still coming back to haunt Republicans. The threat to two of the nation’s most beloved social programs was the backdrop of the most dramatic moment of President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. And as much as Scott may protest—or perhaps because of it—Democrats won’t be dropping the attack anytime soon.

In the portion of his speech on the need to raise the debt limit, Biden said that “some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage unless I agree to their economic plans.” Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had given his own remarks on the debt limit the day before to pre-but the attacks he knew would come, gave one of his many solemnly disappointed shakes of the head.

“Some Republicans want Social Security and Medicare to sunset,” Biden said, before being cut off by loud Republican jeering, punched up with individual shouts from the likes of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who pointed at the president yelling “liar!” The scene was chaotic enough that Biden had to veer off-script and engage in a live policy dialogue with his detractors. That’s unusual, and thrilling for what’s otherwise become a stale tradition. He clarified, almost apologetically, that he wasn’t talking about all Republicans. And when some shouted at him to name these Republicans who wanted Social Security and Medicare to expire, Biden demurred. “I’m politely not naming them,” he said, “but it’s being proposed by some.”
Story by Benjamin Lindsay

Tuesday night's State of the Union Address from President Joe Biden at times turned into a rousing. colosseum-like event with cheers, applause and regular standing ovations from the Democrats - and jeers, boos and shouts of "liar!" from the Republican sector. Covering the overnight news Wednesday, "Morning Joe" replayed several instances where Biden was discussing the debt ceiling, social security and medicare, and how "nearly 25% for the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone" - Trump. Such statements of fact were met with boos from many Republicans, including Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who can be seen in her white fur standing yelling "liar" across the House floor. "They're the facts, check it out," Biden responded. "Check it out."
The right is a bunch of hypocrites, whiners, crybabies and snowflakes they complain about censorship while the censor anything or anyone they do not like. They ban books, censor CRT, black history, LGBT and the woke.

Story by Rodric Hurdle-Bradford

While Twitter was the preferred social media platform for former President Donald Trump, the entire Republican party's discontent with Twitter posts was tracked in a database Twitter kept of GOP requests to remove posts, according to a new Rolling Stone report. The discovery of this detailed list is contrary to the partisan point-of-view that new Twitter owner Elon Musk has been sharing, as he has strategically been dialed-in on communicating Twitter post removal and content challenges from Democrats. At no time has Musk revealed the listing of GOP post removal requests.

The finding comes as part of Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter and its alliances with both political parties, including suppressing content to benefit either Democratic or Republican messaging. According to the story in Rolling Stone, the requests not only came from the staffs of both then-President Trump and current President Joe Biden, but also from the staffs of high-profile members of Congress, including Republican Representatives Kevin McCarthy (California) and Elise Stefanik (New York). The requests include reinstating banned right-wing personalities.
Story by Kaitlyn Kennedy

Washington DC - House Republicans on Wednesday summoned former Twitter executives to testify on the alleged suppression of rightwing voices on the platform, but what they actually heard turned out to be quite the opposite. GOP representatives called the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing to look into Twitter's decision to block a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's alleged activities in Ukraine during the 2020 presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

The chair of the committee, Republican James Comer of Kentucky, claimed during the hearing, "Twitter aggressively suppressed conservative elected officials, journalists, and activists." Republicans also accused Twitter and the federal government of secret collusion to suppress the story about evidence of allegedly compromising business dealings found on Hunter Biden's laptop. Though Twitter has long admitted it made a mistake in blocking the article, accusations of US government involvement in the decision were debunked at the hearing.
C-SPAN

Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder: "We are aware that there have been four previous balloons that have gone over U.S. territory. This is what we assess is part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program."
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Former Democratic strategist and infamous southerner bashed Republicans for their behavior during the State of the Union Address on Tuesday calling them "white trash." "Well, you know, I told people I have a PhD in white trashology, you saw real white trash on display," said Carville speaking to MSNBC's Ari Melber. "Let me say something about congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), she dresses like white trash. She really needs a fashion consultant. I recommend George Santos. He could do a good job of dressing up where she doesn't announce her white trashdom by her own clothes."

Greene was attempting to dress like a white balloon but that appeared to be lost on most Americans who don't follow her on Twitter. The bash by Carville is reminiscent of conservative Matt Lewis who wrote in the Daily Beast that Trump would never have Greene as his VP because she was too "low rent" for his high style. Republicans who spoke to Raw Story were displeased with Greene's behavior at the speech.

"First of all, their lust for cutting Social Security and Medicare is well documented," Carville said about the GOP. "Newt Gingrich shut the government down and got defeated in the end. We know that George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security and Medicare. we know when Paul Ryan was Speaker and John Boehner — they did everything they could to cut Social Security and Medicare. We know that that is their objective."
LiveNOW from FOX

The United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Saturday afternoon. Watch live coverage from LiveNOW from FOX.
Story by Kristyn Burtt

Donald Trump’s campaign team in Wisconsin knew they lost the state in the 2020 presidential election, but that didn’t stop them from trying to spin a fraud narrative. There’s new audio that is confirming that Republican officials behind the scenes were trying to cook up a story that the election was stolen.

This is the latest chaotic issue to come down the pike as Donald Trump tries to run for president for the third time. According to the Associated Press, who posted the leaked audio, the voice is of Andrew Iverson, who led the former president’s campaign in Wisconsin, and shockingly advises the team of possible “stunts” they may need to “pull.” “Here’s the drill: Comms is going to continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal this election,” he said on Nov. 5, 2020. “We’ll do whatever they need (inaudible) help with. Just be on standby in case there’s any stunts we need to pull.”
Christina Wilkie, Emma Kinery

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy prepare to meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss the looming U.S. debt ceiling deadline, both sides are waging an increasingly bitter messaging battle, one that offers a glimpse of how the next few months of political knife fighting could unfold.

On Wednesday morning, McCarthy held a closed meeting with his Republican caucus in the Capitol to preview his sit-down with the president. Leaving that meeting, the speaker said its purpose was “just education” for his members, according to Bloomberg News. “If [Biden] doesn’t want to play politics, and if he wants to start negotiating, let’s sit down and start negotiating where we could come together for the American public,” said McCarthy. But while the House speaker says he is preparing for a negotiation, the White House is battening down the hatches for a fight.
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

CNN — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s talks on Wednesday are about more than a Washington power game. If the two most important leaders in Washington can’t agree to lift the debt ceiling by the time the Treasury runs out of money to pay its debts, the United States – the world’s fabled economic safe haven – could go into default.

Every American could get hurt in the ultimate demonstration of how partisan politics, including growing conservative extremism, is threatening the country’s ability to govern itself and could doom it to a self-inflicted disaster. Because the government typically spends more than it takes in through revenues, it must borrow money to pay for commitments that Congress has already made.

So, if lawmakers don’t grant more lending authority by mid-summer, Social Security retirement payments will be on the line. Veterans could stand to lose their vital health and living benefits. Americans whose 401(k) funds are locked into stocks could see their savings plummet in a global market crash. Borrowing costs for consumers would also likely spike, potentially plunging the economy into a recession that could choke job growth and cause widespread misery.
CBS Mornings

The College Board is revealing framework for its new AP African American Studies program first on "CBS Mornings." The course will cover history and the arts and focus on primary sources over theories.
By ERIC TUCKER, COLLEEN LONG and ZEKE MILLER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI searched President Joe Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Wednesday without turning up any classified documents, the latest turn in an extraordinary series of searches of his and his predecessor’s properties.

Agents did take some handwritten notes and other materials relating to Biden’s time as vice president for review, just as they had when they searched his Wilmington home last month where they also found classified items. Investigators searched his former office at a Washington think tank that bears his name in November, but it isn’t clear whether they took anything.

The Biden searches, conducted with his blessing, have come as investigators work to determine how classified information from his time as a senator and vice president came to wind up in his home and former office — and whether any mishandling involved criminal intent or was merely a mistake in a city where unauthorized treatment of classified documents is not unheard-of.
NBC News

Tyre Nichols’ funeral is expected to bring thousands of mourners to Memphis, including Vice President Harris, just days after the release of graphic video showing the brutal beating that led to his death. NBC News’ Ellison Barber explains what to expect from the service and how the city is preparing.
Back to content