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US Monthly Headline News February 2024 - Page 1
Hunter Biden pointed out Republicans’ apparent indifference about Jared Kushner’s foreign business dealings.
The New Republic

Hunter Biden brilliantly exposed Republican hypocrisy during his closed-door deposition on Wednesday with one simple question.

“How come they’re not curious about the $2 billion Jared Kushner got from the Saudis?” the younger Biden reportedly asked House lawmakers.

Democratic Representative Dan Goldman explained during a break in testimony that Biden was highlighting the difference “between what he has done in a business world with independent businessmen, versus foreign governments, which he did not do any business with—unlike Jared Kushner.”

Representative Jamie Raskin also said the questioning was largely cordial Wednesday morning, but Hunter Biden became more “assertive” when discussing the Kushner double standard.

“He may be a little bit frustrated by some of the double standards relating to Jared Kushner and money that’s just been openly pocketed by Donald Trump in office,” Raskin said. “And Jared Kushner of course brought back $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. And all of that has been a part of the conversation, and he was assertive about that.”
What about Trump's cognitive decline?

Story by Zeleb.es

Former President Donald Trump forgot the name of his wife and possibly confused her with one of his former staffers during a recent speech according to some media reports. What happened and what it means may surprise you.

The Conservative Political Action Conference
While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 24th, the former president appeared to forget the name of his wife Melania while introducing her and then moments later called her Mercedes.

The comments everyone is arguing over
"Well look, my wife, our great first lady, she was great... people love her," Trump told the crowd before later going on to say: "Oh look at that, wow. Mercedes, that's pretty good!" It was a gaffe that quickly went viral online.

Is Trump suffering cognitive decline?
Newsweek noted that people clipped the speech and published a version of the gaffe on Twitter. Political analysts like Luke Beasley used Trump’s comment to accuse the former president of suffering from cognitive decline.
The Republican Party under Trump is now the party of Putin and Russia. The right wing is now the Putin wing. Are we living in an episode of The Americans?

Story by Jacob Miller

As the Russia-Ukraine conflict persists, the voices of former President Donald Trump’s base are becoming increasingly entwined with the rhetoric of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump voters have started to question the animosity towards Russia, with NBC correspondents encountering remarks such as “Russia is not our enemy,” signaling a potential shift in the traditional Republican foreign policy stance.

This perceived sympathy towards Russia from Trump’s voter base comes amid broader concerns over America’s role on the global stage, and whether a resurgent “America First” policy could lead to a more isolationist approach. There is historical precedence for this sentiment; echoes of the pre-World War II isolationism resonate in the recent comments from Trump and his allies against further military aid to Ukraine.

The pivot in outlook is not just a matter of historical comparison; it’s reflected in contemporary polling data. A Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that 53% of Republicans favor the U.S. staying out of world affairs, a first in the survey’s 49-year history. This inward turn is more pronounced when it comes to Ukraine, where a Pew Research Center survey highlighted that 48% of Republicans believe the U.S. is providing too much support to Kyiv.
Mitch McConnell went to extraordinary lengths to transform the federal judiciary. But did he win the day for conservatism or for Trump?
By Peter S. Canellos

Mitch McConnell’s legacy is now embodied by three people: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

All three Supreme Court justices are the product of the longtime Senate GOP leader’s exertions to cut deals, delay appointments, force litmus tests and pressure allies to remake the federal judiciary. The precise contours of that legacy could become clear in quick fashion.

In the next few months, the three justices — elevated by former President Donald Trump with extraordinary assistance from McConnell — will vote whether the ex-president deserves immunity from prosecution for actions committed while in office. At the same time, they will be called upon to weigh in on other highly partisan cases, from whether states can drop Trump from the ballot for supporting an insurrection to whether Trump-allied state governments in Florida and Texas can force social media platforms to publish his missives.

How the justices come down on these cases will go a long way toward determining whether they are partisan “Trump judges,” as the former president has boastfully called them — as if holding a lien on their support — or if they are more like McConnell has portrayed them: conservative-minded independent jurists committed to judicial restraint and interpreting the law without fear or favor.
Sareen Habeshian

Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) tenure as the GOP Senate leader is coming to an end, but rulings from judges he helped confirm will be shaping American life for decades to come.

The big picture: The single moment McConnell might be most remembered for is preventing former President Obama from filling a Supreme Court vacancy in 2016. In the ensuing four years, McConnell joined forces with former President Trump to transform not just the Supreme Court but the entire federal judiciary.

Zoom out: Under McConnell's leadership, the Senate successfully confirmed three conservative Supreme Court justices and more than 200 lower-court judges, shifting the idealogical balance of the courts to the right.
Trump should be tried for treason he interfered in the election and attempted a coup.

Story by Cynthia Paul

In the federal election conspiracy case that special counsel Jack Smith has launched, former president Donald Trump has maintained that he should not be prosecuted because he cannot be held accountable for acts taken while serving in his official position.  

Trump’s Constant Insistence for Other Presidents to Be Jailed
In an even more contentious move, his lawyer told the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that he could not be prosecuted for killing an opponent unless he was first impeached. However, the watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) pointed out on Tuesday that this was not his previous stance. They argued that he has in fact called on former presidents to serve prison terms for crimes they had done while in office.  

They Should Be Tried for Treason
“In late 2018, Trump retweeted an image, later deleted, that showed former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama behind bars, with the caption that suggested they should be tried for treason,” according to the study.  

A Capital Crime
“Trump was referring to the unfounded claims that his 2016 campaign was spied on by the Obama administration as part of a larger ‘deep state’ initiative to undermine his presidential bid. It bears emphasizing that there is no evidence for what Trump was claiming, and even if it were true, it would not rise to the level of treason, which is a capital crime.”
Story by Matthew Chapman

A Michigan judge ruled on Tuesday that, contrary to her claims otherwise, Kristina Karamo is in fact no longer the chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party.

According to Patrick Sviteck for the Washington Post, "Kent County Circuit Judge Joseph Rossi on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction against Karamo, prohibiting her from acting as chair. Karamo has refused to give up the title, even after the Republican National Committee officially recognized her successor, former congressman Pete Hoekstra, this month."

Karamo, who ran unsuccessfully for Michigan Secretary of State in 2022, swiftly became disliked by the Michigan GOP after being elected to the chair, presiding over catastrophic financial collapse and intra-party fighting that led to a physical brawl between officials.
By A.L. Lee

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hired a recent law school grad who was accused of racism while working for a major conservative nonprofit in 2017 when she reportedly sent a text message to a colleague that said, “I hate Black people.”

Crystal Clanton graduated in 2022 from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School in Virginia, which announced last week that she’d been hired as a law clerk for Justice Thomas.

Clanton briefly worked for Justice Thomas in the past, as well as Thomas’ wife, Ginni, in her work as a conservative activist.

After receiving a law degree in 2022, she was hired as a law clerk for two Republican-appointed federal judges, which sparked a firestorm on Capitol Hill as Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee were aware of the racist episode involving Clanton at her old job.

The controversy arose in 2017 when Clanton served as the national field director for the conservative student organization Turning Point USA.
Story by Rohan M.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Jack Posobiec announced the imminent “end of democracy” — and received cheers from the audience.

Predicting doom
“Welcome to the end of democracy,” Posobiec said to open the annual event. “We are here to overthrow it completely.”

Explicit action
“We didn’t get all the way there on January 6,” Posobiec admitted, “but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here,” he said. He then raised his fist.

Call to action
“All glory is not to government,” Posobiec continued. “All glory to God!” The audience responded with cheers.
Story by Glenn Kessler

During his presidency, Trump often claimed he had done more for Black Americans than any other president — or, he sometimes might concede, since Abraham Lincoln. Historians scorned his claim. Many cited Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was Johnson, the historians said, who after Lincoln was the president who made the most lasting impact on the lives of African Americans.

To make his case, Trump would cite achievements like a low Black unemployment rate, increased funding for historically Black colleges and universities (a congressional initiative, not an executive branch one) or passage of an opportunity zone program.

“Trump’s so-called accomplishments will not even be noticed by historians five years from now,” said H.W. Brands, historian at the University of Texas at Austin, in 2020. Trump recited those claims yet again when he addressed a group of Black conservatives last week, even if the talking points have become woefully out of date.

“We achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate ever recorded,” Trump declared, apparently unaware that Black unemployment under Biden has fallen even further. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate under Trump hit a low of 5.3 percent in August 2019, but had inched up to 6.1 percent before the pandemic struck in March 2020. Under Biden, the Black unemployment rate dipped to as low as 4.8 percent in April 2023; it was 5.3 percent in January.
By Malik Graystone

Former CIA director John Brennan issued a stark warning, cautioning that Russian intelligence viewed Republican lawmakers as “tools” for their “exploitation.”

The conversation centered around the recent indictment of Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant charged with making false statements and fabricating records related to the Biden family’s Ukraine dealings.

Involvement of GOP Lawmakers
Republican representatives James Comer and Jim Jordan had spearheaded inquiries into President Joe Biden’s alleged connections to his son’s business dealings, drawing skepticism from Brennan and others.
Story by Alex Griffing

Benjamin Goggin, NBC News’s deputy tech editor, defended his report on Nazis receiving a “friendly reception” at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference after CPAC publicly called it “false, misleading, and grossly manipulative.”

Goggin noted in his report that CPAC has long had to deal with far-right extremists trying to infiltrate the conference, but in past years would quickly eject those with explicit ties to neo-Nazis, like Nick Fuentes.

“But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017,” Goggin wrote, adding:

At the Young Republican mixer Friday evening, a group of Nazis who openly identified as national socialists mingled with mainstream conservative personalities, including some from Turning Point USA, and discussed so-called “race science” and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Goggin also reported on other easily identifiable figures with ties to neo-Nazis he saw at CPAC, including one “with an official badge” from the event.
Story by Molly Bohannon, Forbes Staff

Topline
Kenneth Chesebro, the ex-attorney for former President Donald Trump, told investigators he did not have any social media presence or alternate IDs he used on social media, but a CNN investigation found he had a private Twitter account where he “promoted a far more aggressive election subversion strategy” than he shared with investigators.

Key Facts
Chesebro—a Trump lawyer who was involved in creating a fake electors scheme allegedly designed to overturn the 2020 election results—reportedly distanced himself from schemes to overturn the election when talking to investigators in Michigan, but didn’t mention his alternate Twitter account on which he posted a number of things that contradicted what he told investigators, CNN exclusively reported Monday.
Story by Kendra Lee

Who does the former guy think he’s fooling? On Friday night in a speech his team said was meant to appeal to Black voters in South Carolina—a demographic with which the Republican party continuously fails to gain traction, according to The Nation—he compared himself to us in the most absurd way.

He cited the 91 felony charges he currently faces, and then compared them to unfair treatment Black folks face from the American criminal justice system. “A lot of people said that’s why the Black people liked me, because they had been hurt so badly and discriminated against,” the Washington Post reported him saying in the speech at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual awards gala. The comment got laughter and cheers from the audience.

He stuck his foot in further, citing the Georgia mug shot from last summer as a reason Black voters would choose him come November. He then claimed he’d pardoned many people in the room of 500 before asking Black supporters in the room to stand. After repeated entreaties raised only one such person, he joked, “The lights are so bright in my eyes I … can only see the Black ones. I can’t see any White ones.”
Story by Zachary Folk, Forbes Staff

Topline
Former President Trump appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes” to some watching his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday—but the president’s campaign and surrogates strongly pushed back on those reports, claiming he may have been referring to another person.

Key Facts
While introducing his wife, former First Lady Melania Trump, the former president appeared to forget her name, just moments later saying, “Mercedes, that’s pretty good!” Trump may have been referring to Mercedes Schlapp, a political commentator and wife of American Conservative Union (CPAC organizer) chair and former White House staffer Matt Schlapp.

After the speech, Mercedes Schlapp called reports on the gaffe “Fake News at its finest.” At the end of the speech, Trump addressed Schlapp directly, blaming her for inviting him to speak at CPAC on the eve of the South Carolina primary: “If I do poorly, I’m going to blame Mercedes… because I am supposed to be there and I’m not there.”

However, it would not be the first time Trump has confused two people, including his wife—during a deposition for the sexual abuse lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, Trump misidentified the columnist as his ex-wife Marla Maples.
Story by Cynthia Paul

A prominent Texas newspaper said that endorsing Texas Governor Greg Abbott ten years ago was “wrong,” calling him out for “spewing lies and half-truths” and attacking fellow Republicans for opposing his school vouchers program.

Abbott on the Campaign Trail
In addition to taking the lead on topics like illegal immigration, Abbott, who was elected in 2015, has been out on the campaign trail backing statewide candidates from Texas who are challenging 16 Republican lawmakers who voted against his voucher initiative last year, which would have allowed some students to attend private schools with public funds.

The Then-Texas Attorney General Was a Man of Good Character
Twenty-one Republicans voted against the proposal in the Texas Legislature last year. The Daily Sentinel, which has published editorials since 1899, states that it “endorsed Greg Abbott ten years ago,” saying the “then-Texas Attorney General was a man of good character who had the respect necessary to govern our state…Our opinion of what makes a good governor hasn’t changed, but Abbott has. He’s become the Disrespecter-in-Chief of Texas.”    

Abbott No Longer Respects the Rural Voters
“After listening to Abbott stoop to fear mongering, spewing lies and half-truths and twisting logic in contradictory and baffling ways, we believe he no longer respects the rural voters who have sent him to Austin for three terms.”
Story by Joe Sommerlad

Donald Trump appeared on stage more than 90 minutes late in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday night, where he delivered a speech that was as wild as it was incoherent.

The Republican presidential front-runner appeared flushed and visibly exhausted as he arrived to address the National Religious Broadcasters’ (NRB) International Christian Media Convention, tripping over simple words like “evangelical” during an address littered with verbal miscues and false claims.

At various points, Mr Trump declared that he had made “Israel” the capital of Israel during his presidency (presumably confusing the decision to move its US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem), said that he planned to close down the Department of Education and praised the Capitol rioters, whom he again characterised as political prisoners and referred to as “the J6 hostages”, for their “tremendous spirit”.

He also falsely claimed that “everybody” agreed with the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade and, at one stage, appeared to confuse FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia in 2018 with the spurious Hunter Biden laptop affair so beloved of conspiracy-minded conservatives.

Former President Trump during a Tuesday Fox News town hall essentially admitted to killing the border deal in order to hurt Democrats.
Story by Malik Graystone

Donald Trump’s recent rally in Michigan has sparked concerns about his mental acuity as he made a series of blunders, including misremembering crucial dates and admitting ignorance on key terms.

Michigan Primary Mishap
America, during NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) SUMMIT 2018 — Photo by gints.ivuskans
During the rally, Trump mistakenly reminded voters of the Michigan state primary, getting the date wrong, fueling concerns about his attention to detail amidst his presidential ambitions.

Confusion Over “Indictment”
arrives for Working dinner, during NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) SUMMIT 2018) — Photo by gints.ivuskans
In a surprising admission, Trump confessed to not understanding the term “indictment” for most of his life, raising eyebrows given his current legal entanglements.

Fumbling on Electric Vehicles
Trump’s stance on electric vehicles appeared muddled during the rally, adding to the perception of inconsistency in his messaging.

Questions on Mental State
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has questioned Trump’s mental state, suggesting it could impact his ability to lead if he returns to the White House.
Story by Brandi Buchman

Background: This artist sketch depicts the scene in the Supreme Court as the justices — Justice Clarence Thomas fourth from left — hear arguments about the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that former President Donald Trump should be removed from the primary ballot on Feb. 8, 2024 (Dana Verkouteren via AP). Inset: Justice Clarence Thomas during the Presidential Inauguration ceremony for Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States held at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2017.

Ahead of a significant meeting next month for members of the federal judiciary, a watchdog group hoisted another red flag over U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for what it says is a “30 year pattern” of cherry-picking his financial disclosures once he is raked in the press.

The renewed call for review of the long-embroiled justice comes exactly a month before the Judicial Conference of the United States convenes for its first of only two meetings this year. The group of federal judges, which is led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, acts as a policymaking body for federal courts across the land and can also make recommendations to Congress. It is, as ProPublica has reported at length, a powerful but largely opaque body that polices itself.
Story by M.L. Nestel

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was slammed Tuesday for publicly demanding information his political opponents say he'd received weeks before, according to a new report. Jordan Tuesday subpoenaed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and demanded case files for a number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S.

"Since June 2023, the Committee has requested several HHS case files for criminal aliens charged with serious and violent crimes, including theft, brutal assault, and murder," the letter reads. "Following months of non-responsiveness... HHS finally provided a response that included a variety of baseless excuses to justify withholding the requested criminal alien case files."

The letter further accused HHS of committing "mismanagement of the placement of unaccompanied alien children," which Jordan argued likely resulted in these undocumented youths "committing heinous criminal acts against Americans." But in a statement to NBC News, an HHS spokesperson accused House Republicans of "offering a false pretense for a subpoena while still refusing to take action on immigration reform and border security."
Story by Matthew Andrews

Judge Aileen Cannon is a district judge whom Donald Trump appointed during his presidency. However, she has found herself at the center of controversy in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case involving Trump. Critics argue she should recuse herself due to potential conflicts of interest and previous rulings that have favored Trump.  

Special Counsel’s Strategic Move
Jack Smith, the special counsel for Trump’s case, referenced a past ruling that Cannon handled. He used this to show she should recuse herself. Smith’s filing is an attempt to remind the judge of her limited trial experience and to question her impartiality in Trump’s ongoing legal battles over classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s Legal Team’s Tactics
According to reports, Trump’s legal representatives are working hard to stall the trial. They have asked for longer access to evidence. To some political analysts, this is part of their strategy to tackle Trump’s complex legal challenges. They claim Trump’s team is trying to use procedural tactics to their advantage.  

The Debate on “Selective Prosecution”
Smith’s filing also tackles the idea of “selective prosecution” that Trump’s defense put forward. The special counsel is trying to dismantle the argument that Trump is being unfairly targeted. Trump has repeatedly said, both during the trial and outside of it, that he is the victim of a political ‘witch hunt’ by the Democrat Party.  
Opinion by John Kenneth White, opinion contributor

Special counsel Robert Hur’s nearly 400-page report on Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents after leaving the Obama White House is now public. While not a criminal indictment, it is a political one.

Explaining why he would not pursue the case, Hur damningly described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” This is all too reminiscent of James Comey’s political indictment of Hillary Clinton, calling her “extremely careless” in using a private email server to discuss sensitive government matters.

In his press conference rebutting the report, an angry Joe Biden described himself as “well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing.”

Indeed, his accomplishments are far beyond what anyone expected in 2020: getting millions of shots in arms to move the country past COVID-19, passing the largest infrastructure program since Dwight Eisenhower, signing a Chips and Science Act that brings semiconductor production back to the United States, forgiving billions in student debt, providing greater healthcare coverage to military veterans and their families after their exposure to toxic chemicals and more.  

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who often publicly mocked Biden’s age and mental fitness to serve, privately told allies that he found the president to be “sharp and substantive in their conversations.”
Story by Josh Milton

Donald Trump’s ‘slurred speech’ and ‘repeated errors’ shows he has cognitive decline ‘more apparent’ than Joe Biden’s, according to a professor. For months, campaigners, pundits and uhm-and-erring voters have been grappling with the idea that either of the leading 2024 presidential candidates would be the oldest president in history by the end of their term.

This would break the current record held by Joe Biden – the 81-one-year-old dubbed a ‘well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ in a report by Special Counsel Robert Hur last week. Trump, meanwhile, is a not exactly spritely 77.

As both men face questions over whether they’re simply too old to be president again, one political professor has said Trump’s cognitive decline is ‘more apparent’ than Biden’s. Paul Quirk, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, told Newsweek how Biden’s grey hair and wrinkles have been the go-to targets for Republican attacks.
Story by Amelia Neath

Now, he is making history in another way.

According to a new poll, Mr Trump has now been labelled as the worst president that the United States has ever seen.

The third instalment of the “Presidental Greatness Project”, by University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus and Coastal Carolina University political science professor Justin Vaughn, asked academics to rank each of the 45 people who have served as president all the way from George Washington to Joe Biden.

The survey is based on 154 responses from scholars across multiple disciplines, all of whom, in some way or another, engage in presidential politics through their work.

Previous surveys were released in 2015 and 2018, with respondents this year asked to rank all those who have served time as president on a scale 0-100 – with 0 being failure and 100 being great.

Mr Trump ranked in the very last place, scoring just 10.9/100 – the same spot he occupied in the previous survey (he was not included in the first survey, which was conducted during Barack Obama’s presidency).

He was also awarded “most polarising” president in the poll.
Is Trump a useful idiot or something far worse or is this more quid pro quo for Russia helping Trump the 2016 election inquiring minds want to know?

Story by Reuters
By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump, who drew criticism as U.S. president for his praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, made his first public comment on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Monday in a social media post that cast no blame.

"The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country," Trump wrote, appearing to link the death to his own political troubles.

"It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024"

It was not clear what similarities Trump was trying to draw with Navalny, 47, who fought against what he called vast corruption in the Russian elite and described Russia as ruled by "crooks and thieves."

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

Trump has railed against a judge's order on Friday to pay $355 million in penalties for overstating his net worth to dupe lenders, a decision he called politically motivated. Trump also is preparing for four upcoming criminal trials as he pursues the Republican nomination.
Story by Ed Mazza

Fox News found a creative way to avoid revealing Donald Trump’s place in history ― and the former president’s critics on social media are loving it. Social scientists and other scholars asked to rank U.S. presidents put Trump dead last. But in its tease on X, Fox News merely said Trump was below President Joe Biden:

The survey released by the Presidential Greatness Project puts Trump in last place, behind even William Henry Harrison (#31), who died of pneumonia just 31 days into his presidency, and Richard M. Nixon (#35), who resigned in disgrace due to the Watergate scandal.
Navalny was willing to take on Vladimir Putin and risk his life. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is so afraid of losing his speakership that he caves to Marjorie Taylor Greene
Eric Garcia

Upon the news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, House Speaker Mike Johnson denounced Vladimir Putin.

“As Congress debates the best path forward to support Ukraine, the United States and our partners must be using every means available to cut off Putin’s ability to fund his unprovoked war in Ukraine and aggression against the Baltic states,” he said in a statement.

Of course, Johnson’s words would hold much more weight if he had actually put through the aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that the Senate passed on the floor of the House of Representatives. Indeed, as the Senate labored late into the night on Monday and into the wee hours of Tuesday to pass that aid bill, Johnson summarily killed the bill because it did not address immigration at the US-Mexico border.

This came after Johnson and the rest of House Republican leadership blew up a bipartisan agreement that would have included aggressive restrictions to immigration in exchange for aid to Israel and Ukraine. Johnson, like most of the Republican Party, did so in the service of Donald Trump after he came out in opposition to the deal — despite the fact it would give him sweeping authority to deport migrants if he became president again.
Story by Malik Graystone

The Lincoln Project has launched a new ad campaign in Florida and South Carolina, targeting Donald Trump and Washington Republicans for their role in blocking a bill aimed at bolstering border security and providing aid to Israel and Ukraine. The one-minute ad, titled “Security,” takes aim at Trump’s immigration policies and accuses him of prioritizing chaos over national security.

Highlighting Trump's Opposition
The ad emphasizes President Joe Biden’s commitment to protecting America’s southern border but criticizes Trump for instructing Republicans to block what was deemed the toughest immigration bill in decades. It accuses Trump of fostering chaos to serve his political interests.

There’s only one problem: Donald Trump
“Joe Biden is ready to protect America’s southern border,” the ad says. “There’s only one problem: Donald Trump, (who) has ordered Republicans to block the toughest immigration bill in decades … because Donald Trump needs chaos to win.”

Cartels, Coyotes and…
The ad further says, “Donald Trump Doesn’t care if your family’s safety or the lives of law enforcement officers are in the balance. He’s on the side of the cartels, coyotes, and child [expletive deleted].” While this rhetoric relies on racist narratives, it is effective in driving a point.








Story by Matthew Andrews

Former President Donald Trump and numerous Republicans are currently dealing with several legal challenges over their eligibility to hold office. These challenges are rooted in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause. This is happening across various states, including Colorado and Maine.

Colorado and Maine Lead the Charge
Colorado and Maine have become central to the legal confrontation over Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility. The use of the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause in these states is a first for similar actions nationwide. To some political analysts, this reflects a growing trend in challenging the constitutional qualifications of elected officials.

Nationwide Republican Scrutiny
However, the legal questions are not confined to Donald Trump. According to some sources, many Republicans have faced similar challenges since the 2020 election. Reports suggest that over 100 Republicans have had their qualifications questioned, including the former President himself.

Limited Impact on Qualifications So Far
Despite the numerous challenges, the impact of disqualifying officeholders has been minimal. Couy Griffin, a former Commissioner for New Mexico and one of the founders of Cowboys for Trump, is a notable exception. She has been convicted on charges related to January 6th and is subsequently facing disqualification.
Story by Conor Lynch

Back in 2019, when then-candidate Joe Biden was campaigning on the promise of restoring “normalcy” to American politics after three years of almost daily scandal and chaos in the White House, he made a prediction that would regularly come back to haunt him after becoming president. “The thing that will fundamentally change things,” said the former vice president at a campaign event in New Hampshire, “is with Donald Trump out of the White House. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”

This was a remarkable statement coming from the man who had served eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama, whose administration faced unprecedented levels of Republican obstructionism throughout most of his two terms. But it was also consistent with the former veep’s lifelong faith in bipartisan cooperation. Biden’s view of politics had been shaped by the nearly four decades he spent in the Senate, where he frequently worked with his Republican colleagues on bipartisan legislation (for better or worse). As a creature of the world's “greatest deliberative body,” Biden had always seen politics as an art of the possible, with compromise — not conflict — extolled as the highest principle. As journalist Franklin Foer elaborates in his acclaimed book on Biden’s presidency, The Last Politician, politics for Biden is the “means by which a society mediates its difference of opinion, allowing for peaceful coexistence.” By this definition, it is an “ethos that requires tolerance of competing truth” and a “set of rules whereby the side that fails to prevail in democratic decision-making accepts its defeat.”
Story by Chris Willman

Paramore, not surprisingly, is balking at the idea of singularly getting an honor from the Tennessee legislature celebrating the band's Grammy accomplishments, after the GOP-led House snubbed fellow winner Allison Russell for a similar resolution.

"The blatant racism of our state leadership is embarrassing and cruel," singer Hayley Williams as part of a lengthy statement. "Myself, as well as Paramore, will continue to encourage young people to show up to vote with equality in mind."

The actions of the Tennessee legislature made headlines and drew the attention of music fans nationwide after the two artists got different receptions, with many wondering aloud if the impetus behind the different treatment was evident just in the side-by-side photos of the two artists.

The band's statement to media, first published Friday by the Tennessean, began: "This week, Rep. Justin Jones put forth resolutions to honor my band, Paramore, and another local-to-Nashville artist, Allison Russell, on our recent Grammy wins (as far as I can tell these resolutions have no legal weight to them. They're like a big high five or when the whole restaurant joins in to sing you "Happy Birthday")."
Story by Jo Shaw

A recent publication has highlighted the purported extent of racism and bigotry within Congress. Multiple Republican legislators have faced scrutiny for recent remarks that are deemed to transgress into racist and bigoted territory. Representative Torres recently asserted that “Trumpism serves to embolden extremism” and underscored recent incidents and statements from Republican lawmakers that are considered to have overstepped boundaries.

“Trumpism” Is Encouraging Racism in Congress
A recent article published by the New York Times has highlighted multiple instances where GOP lawmakers had made controversial comments about their Democratic counterparts. The article quotes a statement made by Democratic Representative Ritchie Torres: “The nature of Trumpism is to embolden extremism.”

Republicans Are Crossing Lines
Torres explained, “Whether it’s badgering an Asian witness about his ethnic loyalties, or dehumanizing a cabinet secretary, or accusing a Muslim woman of treason, or describing a Black man as a thug, Republican members of Congress are crossing lines that should never be crossed.”

Rep. Greene Insults Somalian Born Representative
Torres was responding to a series of events that were reportedly highlighting the level of racism that was occurring in Congress. Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has recently been criticized for attacking her Democratic colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar over her Somali origins. In a mistranslation of a social media post, Greene accused Omar of supporting Somalia over the US.
Story by Kathleen Culliton

Speaker Mike Johnson was lambasted Friday by a columnist who argued he’s either a saboteur or cognitively challenged.

“If Johnson has not taken leave of his mental faculties, the alternative is worse,” writes Dana Milbank. “He is deliberately and knowingly sabotaging the functioning of the U.S. government because he thinks it in his interest.”

Milbank is critiquing Johnson’s own words regarding special counsel Robert Hur's report on Joe Biden that was supposed to be about classified documents, but evolved into a debate about the president’s mental health.
Story by Nikki McCann Ramirez

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, died on Friday while imprisoned in Russia. Navalny's death comes as the American conservative movement has grown sympathetic toward Putin, an autocrat whose political enemies have a long history of dying under mysterious circumstances. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is at the forefront of the right's adulation of the Russian president, and just days before Navalny's death he defended the nation's alleged political assassinations.

Calrson did so while speaking with Egyptian journalist Emad El Din Adeeb at the World Government Summit in Dubai on Monday, a week after he interviewed Putin in Moscow. Adeeb questioned why Carlson hadn't pressed the Russian president on "freedom of speech in Russia" and why he "did not talk about Navalny, about assassinations, about restrictions on opposition in the coming elections."

Carlson responded that he has spent his "life talking to people who run countries in various countries and have concluded the following: That every leader kills people, including my leader," he said. "Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that's why I wouldn't want to be a leader."
Trump aka Don the con

The former president denied any wrongdoing, calling the case "a fraud on me."
By Adam Reiss and Dareh Gregorian

The judge who presided over a civil business fraud trial against Donald Trump and his company has issued his decision in the case.

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered the former president and the Trump Organization to pay over $300 million in damages, and bars Trump "from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years."

The judgment is the second this year against Trump after he was hit last month with an $83.3 million verdict in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against him. The former president could also face four criminal trials this year as his presidential campaign barrels toward the November election, with the first set to begin in New York state court on March 25th.

New York Attorney General Letitia James had been seeking $370 million from Trump, his company and its top executives, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, alleging "repeated and persistent fraud" that included falsifying business records and financial statements. James had argued those financial statements were at times exaggerated by as much as $2.2 billion.
The juveniles are being held at a juvenile detention center on gun-related and resisting arrest charges.
By Minyvonne Burke and Matthew Mata

Two juveniles have been charged in connection with a shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade that left one person dead and 22 others injured, officials said Friday.

The juveniles, who were taken into custody after the parade, were charged Thursday and are being held at a juvenile detention center on gun-related and resisting arrest charges, the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri Jackson County Family Court Division said in a statement.

Additional charges are expected as the police investigation continues, officials said.

The shooting happened Wednesday afternoon in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, next to Union Station, where the parade had ended and the rally was held. Authorities said they believe a dispute among several people ended in gunfire and said there was no evidence of violent extremism or terrorism.
Story by Nikki McCann Ramirez

The Department of Justice has charged a former FBI informant - whose claims Republicans used to bolster allegations of a corrupt bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma - with two counts of making false statements to federal authorities.

The indictment, announced Thursday by Special Counsel David Weiss, alleges that Alexander Smirnov "falsely claimed" that during two business meetings in 2015 and/or 2016 "executives associated with Burisma, admitted to him that they hired [Hunter Biden] to ‘protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.'"

Smirnov added that the Burisma officials also said they had paid "$5 million each" to Joe and Hunter Biden, so that the then vice president's son would "‘take care of all those issues through his dad' referring to a criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General into Burisma."
Trump aka Don the con

Story by Alexandria Jacobson, Investigative Reporter

“Insurrectionist-in-Chief.”

“Racketeer-in-Chief.”

“Outlaw-in-Chief.”

“Con Artist-in-Chief.”

“Houdini of White-Collar and Organized Crime.”

“Teflon Don.”

“Boss Trump.”

These are nicknames for Donald Trump offered up by author and criminologist Gregg Barak, who portrays the 45th president’s history of legal troubles as those of a mobster who has long evaded justice for his crimes.

But now, as Trump contends with 91 felony charges across four criminal cases and bears civilly liability for the sexual abuse and defamation of a writer, as well as fraudulently inflating the value of his business empire, Trump must face the legal consequences of his actions.

Still, that doesn’t mean that Trump hasn’t already employed his own “politically organized Republican crime family” to thwart the justice process, Barak argues in his new book “Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy.”

Republican presidential candidate, former Gov. Nikki Haley, R-SC, in a statement on X (formerly Twitter) weighed in on the death of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Are Republicans trying to keep women barefoot and pregnant?

Story by Roseline Richards

The 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health naturally led to fears that access to contraception would be the far right’s next target. Given the GOP’s history, it’s not a concern without merit.  

A Long-Standing Opposition to Contraception
According to Dana Singiser, cofounder of Contraceptive Access Initiative, the GOP has a “long history” of targeting contraception. Singiser also said that it’s becoming increasingly challenging for Republicans to conceal their “long-standing opposition” to it.  

Griswold v. Connecticut
In his concurring opinion on Dobbs, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that the court should revisit the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case, which gave spouses the right to use contraceptives without government interference. “If that’s not a direct threat, I don’t know what is,” Singiser said.  

Democrats, Abortion, and Contraception
Democrats have fiercely campaigned on ensuring access to abortion and contraception in recent years. President Biden even took to social media to accuse MAGA Republicans of “trying to stop women in America from getting safe and effective medication that has been approved by the FDA for over 20 years.”
Story by Ella Bennet

In Houston, state District Judge Andrea Beall has dismissed efforts by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to have his felony securities fraud charges dismissed. These allegations have been looming over the Republican politician for nearly ten years, and with this recent ruling, he is slated to face trial in April. Paxton is accused of defrauding investors in connection with a technology company and could face a maximum of 99 years in prison if convicted. Paxton, who asserts his innocence, has faced numerous delays in his trial since his 2015 indictment, leading his defense team to argue for dismissal on the grounds of a right to a swift trial.

The legal standoff has seen arguments regarding the trial location and payment for prosecutors, with the defense asserting that these delays are undermining Paxton’s legal rights. Still, prosecutors insist that Paxton’s own legal maneuvers are responsible for the prolonged timeline.
Story by Natalie Korach

Liz Cheney and others torched Tucker Carlson for his friendly visit to Russia as Alexei Navalny, one of the fiercest critics of Russian president Vladimir Putin and leader of the Russian opposition, was reported dead in prison on Friday.

"This is what Putin's Russia is," Cheney wrote on X, calling out Carlson. "And you are Putin's useful idiot."

Cheney also called out Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and "other Putin-wing Republicans who are working to defeat Ukraine in its struggle for freedom.

Joe Biden's granddaughter Naomi also called out Carlson, quoting a video in which the former Fox News host is raving about Russian grocery stores saying, "Has anything ever aged so poorly, so quickly before?"

"If Russia is so great, Tucker Carlson should move there and run for president," Naomi Biden added.
Story by Brandi Buchman

A new assessment of public records by a federal watchdog group has found that approximately 210 defendants charged with crimes connected to Jan. 6 directly expressed that they only came to Washington, D.C., or joined in on the violence at the U.S. Capitol because they were incited by former President Donald Trump and heeding his call.

The report was published Wednesday from researchers at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the same group that represents Colorado voters suing to remove Trump from the presidential primary ballot in the state in 2024. A lower court’s finding that he “engaged” in insurrection as defined under Section III of the Fourteenth Amendment bolstered their claim, but whether he can be disqualified remains unseen.

A decision in Trump’s favor is widely anticipated from the U.S. Supreme Court following less-than-favorable oral arguments for the petitioners earlier this month.

Meanwhile, CREW researchers poring over Jan. 6 defendants’ letters, public appeals, court documents and relevant congressional reports as well as news articles and open source records have compiled a table of the extracted evidence that they say is further confirmation Jan. 6 was “the result of organized efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to halt the certification of a free and fair election by force.”
Story by Ron Filipkowski

Ron DeSantis's culture war book banning statute has resulted in chaos, confusion and anger as Florida has banned the highest number of books in the country from schools and public libraries. Florida teachers and libraries face felony charges and up to 5 years in prison for carrying unauthorized books.

One source of confusion and frustration has been that right-wing activists with no children in the public school system are making mass complaints about books in certain libraries and schools. This was something Democrats complained about at the time - that the statute is incredibly vague, making it impossible to know how any particular book violates it, and that anyone, anywhere, anytime, can complain about a laundry list of books, sending school systems into panic mode.

Now, upon his return to Florida after his disastrous presidential campaign, Ron DeSantis has decided to walk back his policy under a firestorm of criticism about the law. This morning, he actually expressed outrage at his own supporters and the very law he championed:
Story by Brad Reed

Trump supporter Dinesh D'Souza's election fraud documentary "2,000 Mules," which was widely panned even by some conservatives, was dealt another blow this week when the group whose claims were at the center of the film acknowledged they had no evidence to back them up.

The Washington Post's Philip Bump shoveled dirt on D'Souza's film, as he called anti-voter fraud organization True the Vote's court admission that it lacked evidence to support its claims to be a "final repudiation" of "2,000 Mules."

"D’Souza’s argument depends entirely on True the Vote’s data, as he explained when we spoke in 2022," wrote Bump. "Much of it was immediately disproved, like the scene in the film where [True the Vote organizers Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips] intimate that they had used cellphone location data to solve a murder that, it turns out, had already been solved. ... At no point do they show a person at a ballot box matched to geolocation data, the purported evidence on which their allegations rest. In fact, only one map of an alleged ballot harvester’s path is shown in the film. In an email to The Washington Post, Phillips admitted that it was artificial."
Matthew Chapman

True the Vote, the right-wing group whose alleged data formed the basis of the election conspiracy theorist documentary "2,000 Mules," told a court it doesn't have any records to support its claims of extensive voter fraud in Georgia, reportedThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday.

"True the Vote said in a recent court filing that it doesn’t know the identity of its own anonymous source who told a story of a 'ballot trafficking' scheme allegedly organized by a network of unnamed groups paying $10 per ballot delivered," reported Mark Niesse. "True the Vote also told the court it doesn’t have documents about illegal ballot collection, the name of its purported informant or confidentiality agreements it previously said existed. The records were subpoenaed by the State Election Board in 2022."
Story by Lee Moran

A veterans group has hammered Donald Trump as “Putin’s puppet” in a new ad that calls out the former president’s latest attack on the NATO military alliance.

Trump at the weekend said he’d encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who don’t “pay their bills” (ignoring the fact that member countries don’t actually pay fees but instead promise to spend 2% of their GDP on defense).

“Putin’s puppet is back with a vengeance and Republicans are marching in lockstep, following orders to strangle the freedom fighters in Ukraine, threatening to break the NATO alliance that’s kept the West safe and encouraging Putin to invade our European allies,” began the narrator of the spot released by the VoteVets progressive political action committee on Thursday.

“Just ask the people of Poland, Finland and the Baltics whose borders are already under assault from Russia whether they trust Putin the way Trump does,” he continued. “Ask the parents of American service members if they are ready to sacrifice their kids’ lives for Trump’s weakness.”
Story by Isaac Schorr

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) voted against a foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan earlier this week after previously suggesting that the Biden administration needed to more to help the Ukrainian war effort.

In a statement released on Monday night, Graham said that while he had “been saying for months that helping Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are extremely important national security imperatives for the United States,” he would be voting against the package because “we must deal with our border first.”

Graham went on to suggest that “the supplemental aid package should be a loan to the countries in question.” Notably, a compromise deal to fund both the trio of countries and help secure the border was negotiated by Senators James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (R-CT) before it was rejected by Republicans in both chambers of Congress.
Exclusive: work by researchers from western universities and counterparts at Sharif University considered potentially ‘very dangerous’ by experts
Jonathan Yerushalmy and Johana Bhuiyan

Academics in the UK, Australia and the US collaborated on research related to drone technology with an Iranian university that is under international financial sanctions and known for its close ties to the military, the Guardian can reveal.

The collaborative research was described by one security expert as having direct military applications, while another called it potentially “very dangerous”. Iranian-made drones have been responsible for a number of deadly attacks in the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, and their development is known to be a top priority for the government in Tehran.

The Guardian has seen no evidence that the research contravenes any sanctions or breaks any laws.
Officials share declassified intelligence as US seeks wider support for sanctions against Tehran
Peter Beaumont

Iran is emerging as a global leader in the production of cheap and lethal drones, according to US officials, who say Tehran is using the war in Ukraine as a shop window for its technologies. Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency outlined how Iran had turned from being a regional drone player in the Middle East to becoming Moscow’s most significant military backer in the war.

Countering denials by Iran’s foreign ministry that its drones had been used in deadly attacks in Ukraine, including against civilian energy infrastructure, the officials shared declassified intelligence demonstrating that Iranian drones used in attacks in the Middle East – including one claimed by Iran – were identical in all significant features to drones being used in Ukraine. One official described Tehran as having emerged as a global leader in the production of cheap and very effective drones.

Although the supply of Iranian drones to Moscow for its war in Ukraine has long been treated as fact in much reporting, as well as in multiple US briefings that have sought to describe the increasingly close military cooperation between Iran and Russia, the officials emphasised that the point of their briefing was to persuade sceptics in a global audience of the depth of the intelligence the US had amassed on Iran’s drone shipments.
David McAfee

Someone who says they ran away from the mass shooting at the Chiefs parade on Wednesday says they saw someone else running: a GOP governor who frequently touts his support for firearms.

Earlier on Wednesday, between eight and 10 people were shot near the Chiefs Super Bowl parade, and two armed suspects were then placed under arrest, according to Kansas City police, the New York Post and the Associated Press. Chaos erupted.

In that chaos, one man reported seeing Missouri governor Mike Parson running scared.
Three people were detained and as many as 22 people were injured at the victory rally, officials said.
By Tim Stelloh, Courtney Brogle, Matthew Mata, Gemma DiCasimirro and Jesse Kirsch

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — At least one person was killed and as many as 21 other people were injured with gunshot wounds in a shooting in Kansas City, Missouri, after a rally Wednesday celebrating the Chiefs' Super Bowl victory, authorities said.

Eight of the injured had "immediately life-threatening" injuries, seven had life-threatening injuries and six had minor injuries after the shooting about 2 p.m. CT, Kansas City Fire Chief Ross Grundyson said.

Three people were detained, though police did not identify suspects. The person shot dead was named as Lisa Lopez-Galvan by her family. Kansas City, Missouri, radio station KKFI 90.1 said Lopez- Galvan was one of its DJs.
Maybe that explains why he is helping Putin by refusing aide to Ukraine

by Aurora DeStefano in Daily Edition

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to let an emergency foreign aid bill — passed by the Senate with bipartisan support that included 22 Republican Senators — get a vote on the House floor.

President Joe Biden says the reason for Johnson’s reluctance is simple: “There’s no question that if the Senate bill was put on the floor in the House of Representatives, it would pass,” Biden said, “It would pass.”

Johnson doesn’t want that — and in a press conference today, the Speaker said it was because the “latest product” the Senate sent didn’t contain “one word” about securing “America’s border.” (For those paying attention, that’s because Johnson — vowing that it would be dead on arrival in the House — helped kill another bipartisan bill a week before that did include extensive border changes and billions to enact them.)
by Aurora DeStefano in Daily Edition

Expecting to testify before Congress after the release of his report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents, Special Counsel Robert Hur has reportedly hired attorney William Burck to represent him. In testifying, Hur would follow in the footsteps of recent Special Counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham, both of whom testified about their investigations after submitting their reports.

Hur, a Republican appointed by Donald Trump and kept in place by Attorney General Merrick Garland, did not charge Biden with any crimes after a year-long investigation. Still, Hur’s report wounded Biden, portraying the president as a “well-meaning, elderly man” with memory problems — a political dagger that Biden defenders called “gratuitous.”
Story by Jacob Miller

Donald Trump’s prolonged attempt to reverse his loss in the 2020 election reached its peak on a single, now-infamous day: Jan. 6.

However, Trump’s legal team had envisioned an alternative scenario—one that would have prolonged the period of uncertainty caused by the Trump campaign’s efforts, stretching the process until Jan. 20, 2021, the Constitution’s firm deadline for the transfer of power. If their plan had succeeded, these lawyers hoped that Joe Biden would never assume office.

The specifics of this plan are now being disclosed for the first time. They are derived from a collection of documents provided to Michigan prosecutors by Trump’s lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, which includes thousands of pages of emails exchanged among Trump’s legal team, some of which contain previously unpublished information.

Trump’s lawyer Chesebro developed strategies to create confusion and disorder by exploiting the procedures outlined in the Electoral Count Act (ECA), which governs the Congressional certification process. Specifically, he devised multiple methods to undermine the ECA, the legislation that outlines the steps for Congress to certify the election on Jan. 6. Crucially, the law imposes strict constraints on the duration of individual lawmakers’ debates over contested electoral votes—changing or extending these limits, set at five minutes per member and two hours in total, could extend Jan. 6 indefinitely.
John Emanuel Banuelos was previously identified by NBC News as a Jan. 6 rioter who told police he had a weapon that day. New footage appears to show him firing it.
By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — Newly unearthed footage from Jan. 6, 2021, appears to show a rioter — a man identified in an NBC News story nearly two years ago — firing a gun into the air outside the Capitol during the attack.

Online sleuths who have aided in hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions say he is the same man they identified to the FBI who is currently individual No. 200 on the bureau’s Capitol Violence page, which he first appeared on three years ago. Videos and photographs from the Capitol on Jan. 6 showed him with what appears to be a gun in his waistband. As NBC News previously reported, that man, John Emanuel Banuelos, told Salt Lake City police that he was at the Capitol and had been captured on film with a gun. “I was in the D.C. riots,” he told the investigators, according to a police transcript. “I’m the one in the video with the gun right here.”

Banuelos has not been arrested or charged in connection with Jan. 6; the Salt Lake City police had arrested him in connection with the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Christopher Thomas Senn in a park on July 4, 2021. “Man, should I just tell the FBI to come get me or what?” he asked Salt Lake City police officers, according to a police transcript. Weeks later, Banuelos called an investigator with the department and “talked about going where Donald Trump sent him,” apparently referencing the Capitol, according to a police record. The Salt Lake City DA’s office did not pursue a case against Banuelos, who claimed self-defense in Senn’s death.
The seat was formerly held by Republican George Santos.
By Emily Ngo and Jeff Coltin

WOODBURY, New York — Democrats flipped the battleground Long Island seat last held by ousted Rep. George Santos, narrowing the already razor-thin Republican majority in the House.

Democrat Tom Suozzi won back his former seat in New York‘s 3rd Congressional District, defeating lesser-known Republican rival Mazi Melesa Pilip. Suozzi was poised Tuesday to return to Congress to represent battleground Long Island, edging out Pilip in the high-stakes race to replace George Santos.
By LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, with the Republican majority determined to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S-Mexico border after failing last week in a politically embarrassing setback.

The evening roll call proved tight, with Speaker Mike Johnson’s threadbare GOP majority unable to handle many defectors or absences in the face of staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Mayorkas, the first Cabinet secretary charged in nearly 150 years.

In a historic rebuke, the House impeached Mayorkas 214-213. With the return of Majority Leader Steve Scalise to bolster the GOP’s numbers after being away from Washington for cancer care and a Northeastern storm impacting some others, Republicans recouped — despite dissent from their own ranks.
By Kevin Liptak and Michael Williams, CNN

Washington CNN — President Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed Donald Trump after the former president said he would encourage Russia to invade countries that don’t meet their NATO obligations, saying such comments amount to bowing down to Vladimir Putin.

The remarks – Biden’s latest criticism of Trump from the White House – are some of his harshest criticism of his likely rival on foreign policy to date.

Speaking Saturday at a rally in South Carolina, Trump said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense. Biden said those comments sent a “dangerous and shocking” signal.

“Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that?” Biden asked incredulously from the State Dining Room. “The whole world heard it. The worst thing is he means it.”

Biden began his speech by encouraging the House of Representatives to “immediately” hold a vote on the Senate-passed, $95 billion supplemental aid package that would provide assistance to Ukraine, Israel and US partners in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Story by By ED WHITE, Associated Press

A Republican lawmaker in Michigan lost his committee assignment and staff Monday, days after posting an image of a racist ideology on social media.

House Speaker Joe Tate, a Democrat who is Black, said he will not allow the House to be a forum for “racist, hateful and bigoted speech.”

State Rep. Josh Schriver, who is white, shared a post on X — formerly known as Twitter — that showed a map of the world with Black figures greatly outnumbering white figures, along with the phrase, “The great replacement!”

The conspiracy theory says there’s a plot to diminish the influence of white people.

Schriver, who represents portions of Oakland and Macomb counties, can vote on the House floor. But Tate removed him from a committee and told the House Business Office to oversee his staff members, who still can assist constituents.
Tom Cotton echoes fellow GOP senators, saying former president was ‘simply ringing the warning bell’
Martin Pengelly in Washington

A leading Republican senator said Donald Trump was “simply ringing the warning bell” when he caused global alarm by declaring he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who did not pay enough to maintain the alliance, as Trump’s party closed ranks behind its presumptive presidential nominee.

“Nato countries that don’t spend enough on defense, like Germany, are already encouraging Russian aggression and President Trump is simply ringing the warning bell,” Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a former soldier, told the New York Times.

“Strength, not weakness, deters aggression. Russia invaded Ukraine twice under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but not under Donald Trump.” Cotton was referring to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

As president between 2017 and 2021, Trump was widely held to have shown alarming favour, and arguably subservience, to Vladimir Putin. Trump made the controversial remarks at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday.

In remarks the Times said were not part of Trump’s planned speech but which did repeat a story he has often told, the former president said: “One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’
Story by Sean O'Driscoll

The Stormy Daniels case looks set to be the first Donald Trump indictment to go to trial, with a hearing set for this Thursday, February 15. Judge Juan Merchan will hold an omnibus hearing to consider a large number of housekeeping motions, including admissibility of evidence, scheduling and a motion by Trump's lawyers to dismiss the case. Once those matters are dealt with, the trial could begin as planned on March 25.

The Stormy Daniels case appears to be the least well-known of the criminal cases Trump is facing. A survey for YouGov in January found 39 percent of American adults had heard a lot about it, 42 percent had heard a little, and 18 percent had heard nothing at all. This meant the case had the lowest recognition of those in the survey, which also included the federal election and January 6 case; the classified documents case; and the Georgia election case.
Story by Jimmy A.

The Supreme Court was engrossed in discussions on Thursday on the matter of whether Donald Trump could be excluded from the 2024 presidential race by states citing a breach of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from office.

Enforcement Doubts
Despite the serious implications, Chief Justice John Roberts hinted at the unlikelihood of enforcing such a “pretty daunting consequence” against the former president.

Challenging Capitol Riot
The justices lightly touched upon the question of Trump’s role as an insurrectionist. Trump’s attorney, Jonathan Mitchell, firmly stated, “This was a riot. It was not an insurrection,” challenging the characterization of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

No Organized Attempt
Trump’s legal defense earlier argued against labeling the event an insurrection, claiming it lacked the organized attempt to overthrow or resist the government.
Story by Michael Gerhardt

You can tell a lot about presidents from their constitutional rhetoric and actions. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt excelled in fashioning compelling visions of the Constitution and constitutional ideals. Lincoln urged his fellow Americans to act in accordance with “the better angels of our nature” rather than give into the temptation of dividing the nation irreparably, while Roosevelt assured the nation that “the only thing to fear is fear itself” and pledged a “New Deal” to restore the American dream. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt told Congress: “No man is above the law and no man is below, nor do we ask for any man’s permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.”

Donald Trump is a different story. During his four years as President, he proclaimed that he had “total authority” to do whatever he wanted to do. That he was immune from any civil or criminal process for anything he did as President, that he was entitled to defy lawful congressional subpoenas without any sanction, that he could not obstruct the law since he was the law himself, and that he had the power to pardon himself. Perhaps most egregiously, he declared that he was exercising his official powers as President when he urged a mob “to take back their country” on Jan. 6, culminating in unprecedented violence and damage at the Capitol.
Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh, CNN

London CNN — Remarks by Donald Trump normally reverberate in an echo chamber of his own creation, a sort of vacuum that often strips them of any consequence globally. It is white noise, one might think – rhetoric designed to project strength and the rejection of the status-quo, rather than an expression of any actual policy. It is just Trump being Trump.

But when the former president suggested on Saturday that he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member that doesn’t meet spending guidelines, the impact was acute.

He recalled what he said was a conversation with a “large” NATO ally – it was unclear who he was referring to or when the conversation took place – which, according to his telling, had declined to spend the 2% recommended equivalent of their GDP on defense, but nevertheless wanted assurances from the US that they would be protected if Russia attacked. Trump said he would not give such an assurance, as the ally was “delinquent,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin should feel free to have his way.
By Adam Durbin | BBC NewsDonald Trump's suggestion the US would not protect Nato allies failing to spend enough on defence "undermines all of our security", the Western military alliance's chief has said.

Jens Stoltenberg also suggested it put US and European troops at greater risk. The Republican said he had told allies he would "encourage" Russia to attack any Nato member that failed to meet the alliance's target of 2% of their GDP.

Members of Nato commit to defend any nation in the bloc that gets attacked. President Joe Biden called Mr Trump's comments "appalling and dangerous", suggesting his predecessor intended to give Russian President Vladimir Putin "a green light for more war and violence".

Addressing crowds during a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a previous meeting of leaders of Nato countries. The former president recalled that the leader of a "big country" had presented a hypothetical situation in which he was not meeting his financial obligations within Nato and had come under attack from Moscow.
Story by Elizabeth Beyer, USA TODAY NETWORK

Shawn Barksdale lost his right to vote before he was even old enough to cast a ballot. When he was 17 years old and living in South Boston, Virginia, Barksdale was convicted of a felony in 1994 for selling cocaine and sentenced to Barrett Juvenile Correction Center for one year. “I ran in the streets,” he said. “I turned 18 inside of that juvenile system.”

Barksdale, now 47, said that losing the right to vote at such a young age made him angry and without a voice. “My mindset was, ‘My vote doesn’t count anyway,’” he said. “I really didn’t understand the right, the power of voting.” That disenfranchisement, in part, led to another prison sentence, this time 15 years for armed robbery for Barksdale when he was in his early 20s.

At the time of Barksdale’s first felony conviction, restoring the right to vote for a formerly incarcerated person was a power only the governor had. That’s thanks to an article in the commonwealth’s constitution dating back to the beginning of the 19th century.
Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY
A quick message to the American people, from your always-hard-at-work Republican Party:

Some of you may have noticed that we, your Republican lawmakers in Congress, have not been doing a great deal of successful “governing” lately. For example, last week we killed the bipartisan Senate border bill that we had previously demanded, then we failed to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for…things, and then we failed to pass a standalone package that would provide aid to Israel.

We want to let our supporters know this intentional uselessness is all part of the plan. We will be doing nothing – zero, nada, zippo – between now and the November presidential election because our boss, the amazing and strong President Donald Trump, told us to ixnay on governing.
Trump has no right to criticize others, Trump is a deadbeat who does not his bills.

Sam Meredith

Former U.S. head of state and presidential candidate Donald Trump stoked the ire of U.S. lawmakers and international leaders, after remarking he would not protect NATO countries from Russian attacks if they lag on their membership payments.

Speaking at a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said that, as president, he warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to a member country that didn’t meet its defense spending guidelines.

Trump, who has a long history of criticizing the transatlantic military alliance, recounted a time when an unspecified president of a NATO member challenged him on his threat not to defend them from a potential Russian invasion if they failed to meet NATO’s target of spending at least 2% of their budget on the military.

“You didn’t pay, you’re delinquent … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills,” Trump said.
Trump has no right to criticize others, Trump is a deadbeat who does not his bills.

By JILL COLVIN

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said that, as president, he warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent” as the front-runner for the Republican nomination ramped up his attacks on foreign aid and long-standing international alliances. NATO’s leader said Trump’s words could undermine security and put American and European forces at risk.

Speaking at a rally Saturday in Conway, South Carolina, Trump recounted a story he has told before about an unidentified NATO member who confronted him over his threat not to defend members who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliance’s defense spending targets.

But this time, Trump went further, saying had told the member that he would, in fact, “encourage” Russia to do as it wishes in that case. “‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted saying. “‘No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”
Story by Ace Vincent

Former President Donald Trump took to social media recently to share a voter poll from the Daily Mail, which depicted words associated with him and President Joe Biden in a potential second term.

The poll revealed that Trump’s word cloud featured terms like “revenge,” “power,” and “corruption,” whereas Biden’s included words like “nothing,” “economy,” and “peace.”

The Voter Poll Word Clouds
The Daily Mail published a voter poll in which participants were asked to describe the political goals of Trump and Biden in a second term using one word.

The resulting word clouds illustrated the contrasting perceptions of the two political figures.

Differences in Terms
While Biden’s cloud featured words related to policy and stability, Trump’s cloud highlighted terms associated with authority and negativity.
Story by Milla J.

Colorado Democrat Joe Neguse used the GOP lawmaker’s words against him. Mark Green, a Tenessee Republican, disagreed with his own op-ed because Neguse had set a trap.

The title
During a hearing regarding the GOP’s impeachment resolution against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Neguse read an excerpt from an article. The Colorado Democrat stated, “I’m going to enter it into the record. The title is, Americans are the victims of the impeachment inquiry.”

The subtitle
Neguse said, “The subtitle…is, ‘A lot of bipartisan legislation that enjoys support sits gathering dust while Congress focuses on the impeachment inquiry. ‘ ” He asked, “I assume you disagree with this?” Green responded, “I do.”

“Interesting” response
Neguse revealed, “It’s interesting. These are your words. This is an editorial that you wrote five years ago during the debate about the impeachment of former President Trump.” The Colorado lawmaker referred to Green’s November 2019 op-ed for The Tennessean.
Story by Rachel Dobkin

Senator Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, has received harsh criticism online for defending Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired an interview that he did with Putin earlier in the week on his website on Thursday evening. It was Putin's first interview with Western media since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Tuberville took to X, formerly Twitter, on Friday to share his thoughts about Carlson's sit-down with the Russian leader.

"Last night's @TuckerCarlson's interview with Putin shows that Russia is open to a peace agreement, while it is DC warmongers who want to prolong the war. That is why I'm voting to stop 60 BILLION MORE of our tax dollars to this conflict," the senator wrote.

Newsweek reached out to Tuberville's office via email.

During his interview with Carlson, Putin suggested that Russia was open to peace talks with Ukraine, but claimed that the United States was getting in the way.

"The President of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelensky] has legislated a ban on negotiating with Russia," the Russian leader said. "He signed a decree forbidding everyone to negotiate with Russia. But how are we going to negotiate if he forbade himself and everyone to do this?"
By Eric Levenson and Lauren del Valle, CNN

CNN — Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of the teenager who killed four students at an Oxford, Michigan, high school in 2021, was found guilty Tuesday of all four counts of involuntary manslaughter in a novel legal case that stood as a test of the limits of who’s responsible for a school shooting.

The jury of 12 deliberated for more than 10 hours. Jennifer Crumbley looked down at her clasped hands as the verdict was read. She was taken from the courtroom in shackles.

Crumbley, 45, had pleaded not guilty to the charges in the November 30, 2021, mass shooting at Oxford High School, in which her son killed four students and wounded six students and a teacher.

She faces up to 15 years in prison, and her sentencing hearing was set for April 9. She has been behind bars since her arrest in a Detroit warehouse days after the shooting.
Story by By Devan Cole and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

The ruling is a major blow to Trump’s key defense thus far in the federal election subversion case brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. The former president had argued that the conduct Smith charged him over was part of his official duties as president and therefore shield him from criminal liability.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution,” the court wrote.

The ruling from the three-judge panel was unanimous. The three-judge panel who issued the ruling Tuesday includes two judges, J. Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, who were appointed by Joe Biden and one, Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush.
Republicans demanded a border deal now that one is one the table they don’t want it.

Republicans demanded a border crackdown but have rejected a bipartisan plan to impose one, underscoring the intractable politics of the issue in an election year.
By Annie Karni

Republicans in Congress who have spent months demanding that any aid to Ukraine be paired with a crackdown against migration into the United States got what they asked for when a bipartisan group of senators released a $118.3 billion agreement that would provide both.

On Monday, many of them rejected it anyway.

It was the latest indication that the political ground for any agreement on immigration — particularly in an election year when it is expected to be a central issue of the presidential campaign — has vanished.

With former President Donald J. Trump eager to attack President Biden’s record on the border and right-wing Republicans in Congress falling in line behind him, a compromise was always going to be a long shot. The long-awaited release on Sunday night of the text of the 370-page bill only served to inflame Republican divisions on an issue that once united them.

Even as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and a champion of funding for Ukraine, took to the floor to push for action on the bill, many of his fellow Republican leaders were savaging it. Speaker Mike Johnson denounced the measure as “even worse than we expected” and, in a joint statement with his leadership team, repeated what had become his mantra about the deal — that it would be “dead on arrival” in the House.
Party before country once again Republicans are helping Trump over America.

The striking turn of events comes as Donald Trump tells the GOP to sink the bill, arguing that it could take the political heat off Democrats ahead of an expected rematch with Joe Biden.
By Frank Thorp V, Sahil Kapur, Kate Santaliz and Syedah Asghar

WASHINGTON — In a striking turn of events, Senate Republicans threatened Monday to block a major bipartisan package of border security measures and asylum restrictions, just one day after their chief negotiator signed off on it.

GOP senators left a special closed-door meeting in the evening predicting that their party would not provide enough votes to move forward with the package Wednesday, saying they agreed they need more time to discuss changes to the bill in the form of amendments.

“I would anticipate Wednesday the cloture vote does not pass,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., the lead GOP negotiator in the border talks, told reporters after the meeting. “People are saying, 'Hey, I need a lot more time to be able to go through this.'”

The Republican uneasiness could be devastating to the package, which House Republican leaders have already said is "dead on arrival" in the lower chamber. Proponents hoped that strong bipartisan support in the Senate could force the House's hand.
Igor Derysh

Allen Weisselberg, the former longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, is negotiating a deal with Manhattan prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury, according to The New York Times.

The deal would require Weisselberg to admit that he lied while testifying at Trump’s recent civil fraud trial and in an earlier interview with the New York attorney general’s office, sources told the outlet.

The reported deal comes after a long pressure campaign by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose team sought Weisselberg’s cooperation in several investigations into Trump’s business and alleged election crimes. Trump is scheduled for trial in Manhattan in March in the 2016 hush-money case.

The deal likely would not require Weisselberg to “turn on his former boss,” according to the report. Prosecutors are not expected to call him as a witness in the hush-money case and the investigation into Trump’s finances “may no longer be a priority for prosecutors,” the Times reported.
DA’s office argues no conflict to warrant removal, dropping charges
By Tamar Hallerman and Bill Rankin

District Attorney Fani Willis on Friday acknowledged she was in a “personal relationship” with Nathan Wade, one of the top prosecutors on Fulton County’s election interference case, but said there was no conflict that justified removing her or her office from prosecuting Donald Trump and 14 others.

The admission was included as part of Willis’ highly-anticipated written response to allegations of impropriety that have rocked the Trump case for the last month.

In the 176-page document, Willis said the accusations made against her and Wade were designed mainly to garner media attention — and didn’t carry much legal weight.

“(T)he motions attempt to cobble together entirely unremarkable circumstances of Special Prosecutor Wade’s appointment with completely irrelevant allegations about his personal family life into a manufactured conflict of interest on the part of the District Attorney,” the filing said. “The effort must fail.”
The implications have started coming into focus with the scrapping of March 4 as the start date for the former president’s federal trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election.
By Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage

In December, when a federal appeals court agreed to hear former President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping claims to be immune from charges of plotting overturn the 2020 election, it laid out a lightning-fast briefing schedule, asking the defense and prosecution to file their papers on successive Saturdays during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also moved with unusual alacrity in setting up a hearing for arguments on the issue, scheduling the proceeding on Jan. 9, just one week after all of the papers were submitted — a remarkably short window by the standards of the judicial system.

But after sending up what appeared to be clear signals that they intended to swiftly resolve this phase of the immunity dispute — which lies at the heart of both the viability and timing of Mr. Trump’s trial on the election subversion charges — the appeals court judges have yet to issue a decision.
State attorney representing Jena Griswold will get 10 minutes to address justices during hearing
By Joe Rubino

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s behalf next week as it considers an appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision finding former President Donald Trump ineligible for the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.

In an order Friday, the high court granted Griswold’s request for a 10-minute sliver of time for an attorney representing her office to speak during oral arguments. The justices also will hear from lawyers for Trump and the Colorado voters who challenged his eligibility during Thursday’s hearing in Washington, D.C.

The state’s highest court found in a 4-3 ruling in December that Trump was disqualified from becoming president again because his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But a stay is in place because of the appeal, allowing the Republican frontrunner to appear on Colorado’s March 5 presidential primary ballot.
The mother of a teenage boy who shot dead four students at his high school in the United States took the stand for the second day on Friday at her high-profile trial on involuntary manslaughter charges.
Edited by Pushkar Tiwari

The mother of a teenage boy who shot dead four students at his high school in the United States took the stand for the second day on Friday at her high-profile trial on involuntary manslaughter charges.

Jennifer Crumbley, 45, and her 47-year-old husband James Crumbley are each charged with four counts of manslaughter. They are reportedly the first parents of a school shooter to face felony charges in the US for the actions of their child.

Their son, Ethan Crumbley, 17, is serving a life sentence for the November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan which left four students between the ages of 14 and 17 dead.
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