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US Monthly Headline News June 2022 - Page 1
By Tom Boggioni | Raw Story

Hot on the heels of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posting an extended video praising Christian nationalism (which can be seen below) and promising it is not “something to be scared of," two researchers whose book "The Flag and the Cross" is just about to be published, disputed her claim and said the movement is highly dangerous and a "threat to democracy." In an interview with Intelligencer, sociologists Samuel L. Perry of the University of Oklahoma and Philip S. Gorski of Yale University, issued a warning that the belief is at the heart of "some of the most radical fringe groups" in the U.S. which are finding support from a smattering of elected Republican lawmakers and some hoping to be on the ballot in November. Speaking with Sarah Jones, the two academics explained that it is important that the term "white Christian nationalism" be used to put a name on the threat to get the attention of the public.
By Bob Brigham | Raw Story

The extent of the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election is coming into sharper focus due to a new document obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

"Supporters on the fringes of former President Trump’s circle explored seeking sweeping authority after the 2020 election to enlist armed private contractors to seize and inspect voting machines and election data with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, according to a draft letter asking the president to grant them permission," the newspaper reported. "The previously undisclosed 'authorizing letter' and accompanying emails were sent on Nov. 21, 2020, from a person involved in efforts to find evidence of fraud in the election that year. The documents, which were reviewed by The Times, are believed to be among those in the possession of the House Select Jan. 6 committee, which is scheduled to begin public hearings Thursday." The newspaper reports the letter appears to be an early iteration of a draft executive order presented to Trump on Dec. 18, 2020 by lawyer Sidney Powell and former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO who was funding election denying efforts, was also in attendance.
Erik Larson and Joel Rosenblatt

(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump and three of his children agreed to be questioned under oath for up to seven hours each in a class-action lawsuit over their yearslong promotion on “Celebrity Apprentice” of a troubled multi-level marketing company. The former president, along with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump, are among more than a dozen people who will be deposed in June and July, including unspecified contestants on the reality-TV show, lawyers for all those involved in the case said in a letter to a judge Friday night. They’ll be questioned about Trump’s paid endorsement of ACN Opportunity LLC and its clunky desktop video phones on “Celebrity Apprentice.” Plaintiffs say Trump falsely claimed he wasn’t being paid for the promotions and lied about his belief in the product and the risks involved.
salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani)

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election was something not even former President Richard Nixon would have imagined. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the two reporters known for uncovering the Watergate scandal said they thought Nixon defined corruption until they saw Trump's presidency. In 1972, the Nixon administration coordinated a break-in at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters. The administration attempted to cover up its involvement until Nixon was forced to resign in 1974. Woodward and Bernstein said the news media, the Senate Watergate Committee, special prosecutors, a House impeachment investigation, and the Supreme Court exposed Nixon's conduct, a contrast to Trump's attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power.
Misty Severi

A mother who ran into Robb Elementary School to rescue her two children during the Uvalde school shooting accused law enforcement of threatening her to keep her from telling her story to the press. Angeli Gomez said she was threatened by an officer who warned she would be charged with "obstruction of justice" if she did not stop telling her story. The charge would have serious consequences because she was on probation for a crime she said she committed nearly 10 years ago. She added that a local judge said there would be no legal repercussions for telling her story. Gomez said she had been at the school in Uvalde, Texas, for a graduation ceremony earlier in the day, when she heard that there was a shooting in progress. Gomez hurried back to the school and confronted police officers about why they were not in the school rescuing the children. The incident ended with the mother being arrested by federal agents. "He said, 'Well, we're going to have to arrest you because you're being very uncooperative,'" Gomez told CBS News. "I said, well you're going to have to arrest me because I'm going in there. Y'all are standing with snipers and y'all are far away. If y'all don't go in there, I'm going in there."
Associated Press

HERNANDO, Miss. - A flyer on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan was reportedly left on the steps of a mostly Black church in rural Mississippi. According to a community member’s Facebook post, the flyer is in support of “The Old Glory Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” and states that the group is “alive and growing” in 14 states, including Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina.
Anna Kaplan, Forbes Staff

Texas authorities have faced mounting criticism for offering contradicting reports and retracting key details about the timeline of the shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week, as the public rages over the amount of time it took for officers to confront and neutralize the 18-year-old gunman.

Key Facts
“Brave resource officer”: Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Victor Escalon retracted an initial claim Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw made that a “a brave resource officer” confronted the gunman outside of Robb Elementary School, saying at a press conference last week that the report was “not accurate” and that the shooter, Salvador Ramos, walked into the school “unobstructed.”
Tom LoBianco·Reporter | Yahoo News

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., lit into the “weirdos” that he said are tearing the United States apart, in a fiery speech at the Reagan Foundation that connected the hyperbolic political debates of the last few years with the global threats facing the nation. The Nebraska Republican ripped into “performance artists” on the far left and far right who have dominated politics for close to a decade, saying they’re more focused on getting likes and retweets for themselves on social media than on preserving the United States’ standing as a global superpower amid new threats from adversaries like China. “This is a government of the weirdos, by the weirdos and for the weirdos,” Sasse said Thursday night in California. “Politicians who spend their days shouting in Congress so they can spend their nights shouting on cable, are peddling crack — mostly to the already addicted, but also with glittery hopes of finding a new angry octogenarian out there.”
Laurie Foti

When all prices are rising, consumers lose track of how much is reasonable to pay. “In the inflationary environment, everybody knows that prices are increasing,” said Z. John Zhang, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied pricing strategy. “Obviously that’s a great opportunity for every firm to realign their prices as much as they can. You’re not going to have an opportunity again like this for a long time.”

Understand Inflation and How It Impacts You
The real disagreement is over whether higher profits are natural and good. Basic economic theory teaches that charging what the market can bear will prompt companies to produce more, constraining prices and ensuring that more people have access to the good that’s in short supply. Say you make empanadas, and enough people want to buy them that you can charge $5 each even though they cost only $3 to produce. That might allow you to invest in another oven so you can make more empanadas — perhaps so many that you can lower the price to $4 and sell enough that your net income still goes up.
Ryan King

Leaders of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot are reportedly irate over an interview a former adviser conducted with CNN in which he disclosed details about the inquiry. David Buckley, the staff director of the panel, ripped into a CNN appearance by former Virginia GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman, the ex-adviser, and warned the committee members to adhere to their employment agreement, which stipulates that they must receive approval from Buckley before discussing the inquiry outside of work. “I want you to know that I am deeply disappointed in his decision to discuss the Select Committee’s work on television,” Buckley told staffers in a Wednesday email obtained by Politico. “His specific discussion about the content of subpoenaed records, our contracts, contractors and methodologies, and your hard work is unnerving." “That includes any conversation with Denver,” he continued. “Your commitment extends beyond your employment by the House as outlined in our handbook.”
By Evan Perez, Ryan Nobles and Gloria Borger, CNN

(CNN) The Department of Justice has informed the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection that it will not indict two former Trump White House officials found in contempt by the committee. According to a source familiar with the notification, US Attorney Matt Graves notified Doug Letter, the House general counsel, that the Justice Department had completed its review and had decided it "will not be initiating prosecutions for criminal contempt, as requested in the referral against Messrs Meadows and Scavino." The New York Times first reported the news that Mark Meadows, former chief of staff to then-President Donald Trump, and Dan Scavino, former deputy chief of staff to Trump, won't be prosecuted. The decision by the Justice Department is a blow to the House panel's efforts to enforce subpoenas related to its investigation and could embolden other Trump associates facing similar requests to not cooperate. It comes the same day that former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro was indicted for failing to cooperate with the committee.
By Kathryn Watson, Robert Legare

Former top Trump White House aide Peter Navarro has been indicted by a grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress, according to court documents. But CBS News has learned former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino will not face prosecution, despite being referred for contempt for failing to appear in front of the Jan. 6 select committee. An official familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News a letter was sent to the House committee telling them of the decision by the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. "While today's indictment of Peter Navarro was the correct decision by the Justice Department, we find the decision to reward Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino for their continued attack on the rule of law puzzling. Mr. Meadows and Mr. Scavino unquestionably have relevant knowledge about President Trump's role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the events of January 6th," said select committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, in a statement.
Gonzalo Lopez was serving a life sentence for capital murder and attempted capital murder, when he attacked a prison bus driver on May 12 and escaped in a rural part of Texas.
By Claire Cardona, Lindsey Pipia and Phil Helsel

DALLAS — The escaped Texas inmate on the run for three weeks was killed in a shootout Thursday after he killed a grandfather and his four grandchildren at a home, officials said. Gonzalo Lopez, 46, had no connection to the family that was found dead in Leon County in east Texas, said Jason Clark, chief of staff for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He has been missing since May 12 when he stabbed a prison bus driver in the hand and escaped on foot in rural Texas, officials said. He took a truck from that home, which is about halfway between Dallas and Houston, and law enforcement in Atascosa County, south of San Antonio, spotted it and started following, Clark said. After the tires were spiked and a short chase, Lopez crashed into a tree. He got out with a gun and shot at officers who fired back and killed Lopez, Clark said.
By Holly Yan, Priya Krishnakumar, Tal Yellin and Christopher Hickey, CNN

Since 19 children and two teachers were massacred in Uvalde, Texas, authorities have repeatedly changed their story on what happened before, during and after the bloody siege in two adjoining classrooms. The May 24 slaughter at Robb Elementary School marked at least the 30th shooting at a K-12 school (kindergarten through high school) so far this year and the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade. Now, mourners are tormented by shifting police narratives and the horror of knowing victims were trapped with a gunman for more than an hour — despite repeated 911 calls for help from inside the classrooms. Here are some of the key details that have changed since the deadly rampage:
WARNING: This video contains the sound of gunfire
Police say a 12-year-old boy armed with a 9mm pistol demanded money from a gas station clerk in Hartford, Michigan on June 1, 2022. When she asked if he was serious, the boy held up the gun and fired a round. The owner handed the boy a bank bag with several thousands of dollars, according to police
The boy ran away but was soon caught. Police also recovered the gun and stolen money.
Jake Thomas

Washington state's Supreme Court has imposed more than $28,000 in fines on an "election integrity" group and its lawyer for providing scant evidence for its lawsuit alleging state officials illegally registered non-citizens to vote.  Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Wednesday announced his office had convinced the court to impose sanctions for what he called an attack on democracy and the legal system. The fines are the latest setback for the "Stop the Steal" movement fueled by former President Donald Trump's repeatedly debunked claims that widespread voter fraud marred the 2020 presidential election. The Washington Supreme Court ordered nonprofit Washington Election Integrity Coalition United to pay $9,588.80 and its attorney, Virginia Shogren, to pay $18,795.90. The sanctions stem from a petition Shogren filed on behalf of the group in October 2021 with the state Supreme Court that alleged Governor Jay Inslee and other officials sought to actively register non-citizens to vote. To support its claims, the group's petition includes an affidavit describing a statement from a retired state Department of Licensing employee who said she witnessed department employees registering non-citizens to vote.
By Tom Boggioni | Raw Story

According to a report from Rolling Stone, officials in Donald Trump's administrationconned Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) into voting for current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh while ridiculing her at the same time for being easy to manipulate with one going so far as to crassly mock her as a "cheap date." As the Rolling Stone's Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report, Collins "was deliberately manipulated by Trump administration officials — and a future Supreme Court Justice — who viewed her as an easy mark." Collins, often mocked for her constant professions of being "concerned" by current events, was considered to be a walkover by the Trump administration officials and supporters of Kavanaugh who felt she only needed "vague assurances" that Kavanaugh would not be a vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. According to Rolling Stone, two former Trump officials admitted that they played Collins and then laughed at her behind her back.
By Travis Gettys | Raw Story

The Infowars bankruptcy case could set a new precedent for companies using the court against their legal challengers. The right-wing conspiracy site's owner Alex Jones is using “Subchapter V” bankruptcy to limit his obligation to pay off judgments for making false statements about the Sandy Hook shooting, but the Department of Justice is seeking to dismiss the bankruptcy case altogether by arguing the site's three debtors are nothing but shell companies, reported Axios. "The strategy employed here ... is a novel and dangerous tactic that is abusive and undermines the integrity of the bankruptcy system," wrote the DOJ's watchdog in a court filing.
Kipp Jones

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) vetoed a budget item for a new practice facility for the Tampa Bay Rays over the team’s recent tweets about gun control. The Florida Republican signed his state’s new budget Thursday for the coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1.
By Sarah K. Burris | Raw Story

Vice News reveals that a press secretary for Romana Didulo, the QAnon influencer who purports to be the true Queen of Canada, has announced that she is now leading the world. “The entire team was privileged to hear Queen Romana speak to the United States Commander and Chief via telephone and hear the intel disclosed. Wait for it…. ” said Didulo’s press secretary. “Queen Romana is the leader of the world!” She stood in a parking lot with a new RV and a purple Queen Roman logo. The press aide explained that this would bring legitimacy to the new Queen of the World. “Queen Romana has done all of the heavy lifting and now it is up to we the people to stand in our authority and put these decrees into place,” she told the queen's followers of the 79 "decrees" that the queen has issued. "The only visible leader on this planet is her royal majesty Queen Romana period, and that’s a mic drop."
By BOB CHRISTIE, Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona woman accused of illegally collecting early ballots in the 2020 primary election pleaded guilty Thursday in an agreement with state prosecutors that saw the more serious forgery and conspiracy charges dismissed and limited any potential for a lengthy prison sentence. Guillermina Fuentes, 66, could get probation for running what Arizona attorney general's office investigators said was a sophisticated operation using her status as a well-known Democratic operative in the border city of San Luis to persuade voters to let her gather and in some cases fill out their ballots. Prosecutors were apparently unable to prove the most serious charges, dropping three felony counts alleging that Fuentes filled out one voter's ballot and forged signatures on some of the four ballots she illegally returned for people who were not family members.
Ed Mazza

Jimmy Kimmel, left, has a lower than low opinion of Donald Trump Jr. (Photo: ABC/Getty Images)
Jimmy Kimmel called out Donald Trump Jr. for talking tough about China while also exploiting his own fans and his father’s supporters by selling them overpriced merch made in China. “Shameless, worthless grifters and leeches is what these people are,” Kimmel said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Thursday. “And remember that!”
Daniel Coughlin

Ever wondered what it might be like to step into the rarefied world of Donald Trump's famous buildings? The ex-president made his fortune in real estate and has a roster of lavish towers around the world that are owned, managed or licensed by the Trump Organization, offering added extras to appeal to his wealthy tenants, from private jets to in-house temples. Click through the gallery for the lowdown on apartment prices, amenities, famous neighbors, gossip and more...
Igor Derysh

Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday heaped praise on special counsel John Durham for boosting former President Donald Trump's "Russiagate" narrative even though his three-year investigation has been dismissed as an epic failure by legal experts. Durham, the former U.S. attorney for Connecticut, was first assigned to investigate the origins of the FBI investigation into Trump's ties to Russia in 2019 and was later appointed as a special counsel by Barr in 2020, ensuring the probe would continue after Trump left office. Durham in September 2021 indicted former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman, alleging he lied to the FBI about his ties to the campaign while discussing his suspicions about Trump's ties to Russia with former FBI general counsel James Baker. Sussman's attorney argued that the charge was a "circus full of slideshows" as Durham used the proceedings to stoke Trumpworld conspiracy theories. A jury acquitted Sussman on Tuesday in a major blow to the investigation, which Trump and his allies had hyped for years.
By Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb and Elizabeth Stuart, CNN

Washington (CNN) Within minutes of the US Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, messages began pouring into the cell phone of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among those texting were Republican members of Congress, former members of the Trump administration, GOP activists, Fox personalities -- even the President's son. Their texts all carried the same urgent plea: President Donald Trump needed to immediately denounce the violence and tell the mob to go home. "He's got to condem (sic) this shit. Asap," Donald Trump Jr. texted at 2:53 p.m. "POTUS needs to calm this shit down," GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina wrote at 3:04 p.m. "TELL THEM TO GO HOME !!!" former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus messaged at 3:09 p.m. "POTUS should go on air and defuse this. Extremely important," Tom Price, former Trump health and human services secretary and a former GOP representative from Georgia, texted at 3:13 p.m. "Fix this now," wrote GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas at 3:15 p.m.
By Matthew Chapman | Raw Story

On CNN Thursday, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman analyzed the claims made by former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), an adviser to the January 6 committee, in an exclusive CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, about former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows's messages about the plot to over turn the 2020 presidential election. "Denver Riggleman there saying that basically the text messages made him sick, they are a roadmap, a roadmap to what?" asked anchor John Berman. "Look, they clearly are a roadmap," said Haberman. "I actually have had this conversation with people both working on the investigation and my own colleagues that if this committee did not have Meadows' texts, I'm not sure what they would have. They paint a very clear portrait of what was being discussed, who he was talking to.
Caitlin Dickson

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has kept a tight lid on its plans for televised hearings slated to take place this month, but that hasn’t stopped speculation about who might be called to testify. Among the names that have been floated as a potential witness in the highly anticipated hearings is that of Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has already been cited as the source of multiple revelations uncovered by the select committee’s probe. Hutchinson, who served as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, was subpoenaed in November 2021, along with several other former Trump administration officials who, the panel believed, had relevant information regarding the former president’s activities on Jan. 6 and the role he and his aides played in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. According to her subpoena, Hutchinson was not only at the White House on Jan. 6 but she’d been with Trump during his speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” before promising to march with them to the Capitol. She also emailed Georgia officials directly following Meadows’s trip to attend that state’s election audit, according to the subpoena, and was present for other key meetings and conversations at the White House leading up to Jan. 6.
By Andy Rose, Amy Simonson and Travis Caldwell, CNN

(CNN) Four people were killed in Tulsa on Wednesday after a gunman -- who was later found dead -- opened fire on the second floor of a medical building, authorities in Oklahoma said. "It was just madness inside, with hundreds of rooms and hundreds of people trying to get out of the building," Tulsa police Capt. Richard Meulenberg told CNN. The mass shooting is among the latest instances nationwide of first responders and civilians coming face-to-face with the threat of gun violence in public places. It comes more than two weeks after a racist assault at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a bloody attack at a church in California; and eight days after a heartbreaking massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Law enforcement received a call just before 5 p.m. Wednesday about a person with a firearm at the Natalie Medical Building, a physicians' office facility on the campus of Saint Francis Hospital, Tulsa police Deputy Chief Eric Dalgleish said at a news conference. Responding officers who arrived within minutes "were hearing shots in the building, and that's what directed them to the second floor," Dalgleish said.
Wbbm Newsradio Staff Report

(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A mother and her adult son are defendants in what the Illinois Attorney General says is the first-ever hate crime lawsuit filed under a 2018 state measure. Cheryl Hampton, 67, and her son, 45-year-old Chad Hampton, systematically harassed and intimidated a Black neighbor in Carroll County, culminating in the pair using a noose to lynch an effigy of the minority resident from a tree in their front yard, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said. Raoul’s office said Cheryl Hampton and Chad Hampton, who are white, also displayed a racial slur alongside a Confederate flag and swastikas in direct view of the neighbor’s home in far northwest Illinois. “Our complaint alleges the defendants intentionally used the shameful history of lynching and racism in America to terrorize and instill fear in their next-door neighbor simply because he is Black. No one should be subjected to this kind of hate,” Raoul said in a news release Wednesday.
Jonathan Chait

Donald Trump’s bid to win an unelected second term spectacularly failed. But the effort he inspired is winning a longer-term campaign to reshape his party into an organ to advance his belief that Democratic election victories are inherently illegitimate. Trump’s success can be seen in the general refusal of Republican officials to acknowledge Joe Biden’s legitimate victory and their co-option of stop-the-steal fantasies with vote-suppression laws and new election police forces. Its most dangerous manifestation is probably the creation of an institutionalized movement to disrupt and challenge elections on the ground as they occur. That movement has been detailed in two recent stories, by the New York Times and Politico. The Times focuses on the role of Cleta Mitchell, a longtime conservative Republican who is recruiting activists inspired by Trump’s stop-the-steal crusade to serve as poll watchers. Politico reports both on efforts to flood election sites in Michigan with right-wing volunteers as well as a broader national effort to link up Republican district attorneys who can mount real-time challenges. It’s difficult to forecast with any certainty what effect these new forces will have on future elections. It’s entirely possible they will merely harass and annoy voters and poll workers, and perhaps generate more unsuccessful legal challenges, without changing the outcome.
mjankowicz@businessinsider.com (Mia Jankowicz,Rebecca Cohen,Natalie Musumeci,Azmi Haroun)

Texas officials on Friday again made crucial changes to their timeline of the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, adding to the lack of clarity around how the massacre took place and how police responded to the attack. From the initial reports of the shooting on Tuesday, May 24, to the most recent news briefing by Director of Texas Department of Public Safety Steven McCraw on Friday, May 27, police have changed the narrative of how law enforcement reacted to a gunman's rampage in which he killed 19 children and two teachers. Facing withering criticism from parents, McCraw said that a police commander in charge of the scene — Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo — refused to send police in to stop the shooting, calling the decision "wrong." Here are the more than a dozen changes to details that law enforcement officials have offered since the shooting:
Thomas Kika | NEWSWEEK

ATexas man was arrested on Thursday after purchasing a firearm accessory and threatening that he intended to go "human hunting," police said. The Laredo Police Department said it received a tip about the man on Wednesday after he purchased an optic scope for one of his guns and told the seller of his grisly supposed plans when they met in person, according to a statement sent to Newsweek. The seller, whose identity has not been disclosed to the public, was alarmed by this statement and reported it to the police. Laredo, Texas, is about 130 miles south of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary last week. The incident prompted an international conversation about gun laws across the U.S. as well as in other countries. An investigation was then launched by the Laredo Police Crimes Against Persons Unit and the LPD Juvenile and Gang Enforcement Team, attempting to determine the man's identity and locate him. Authorities eventually determined that the man was Javier Torres, 37. An arrest warrant was issued for Torres on Thursday, charging him with third-degree terroristic threats, a felony-level offense. The same day, police executed a search warrant on his residence where he submitted to arrest "without incident."
The Justice Department is seeking the testimony of three GOP legislators in a suit alleging discrimination against minorities in the state's new congressional and legislative maps.
By Pete Williams

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to prevent Texas state legislators from answering questions in a lawsuit over the state’s plan for drawing new congressional and legislative district boundaries. Without explanation, as is its usual practice, the court turned away an emergency appeal from the state, which sought an order to block a federal judge from forcing three GOP members of the Texas House to appear for depositions. Their testimony is sought in a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department and civil rights groups who say the Voting Rights Act requires the state to create more districts where a majority of voters are racial minorities.  
Deidre Montague

When I heard about the Buffalo shooting, I was really disheartened. Hearing that this 18-year-old shooter was influenced by the “Great Replacement” theory, brought tears to my eyes for the families and friends of the beautiful ten individuals whose lives were snatched away from this world. For those who may be unfamiliar with this racist ideology, the “Great Replacement Theory” is a conspiracy theory that “says that there is a plot to diminish the influence of white people.” People who subscribe to this theory believe that “this goal is being achieved both through the immigration of nonwhite people into societies that have largely been dominated by white people, as well as through simple demographics, with white people having lower birth rates than other populations,” according to The Associated Press. In their April 2022 report, Define American identified what anti-immigration messages were most pervasive on the platform, YouTube. They were able to map out the top-performing anti-immigration content creators of the last 13 years and analyzed their messaging tactics, which they discovered that their “underlying arguments support the white nationalist theory of “The Great Replacement,” or the idea that immigrants of color will overtake predominantly white nations, causing a “white genocide.”
Are police trying to prevent the truth from coming out?

Timothy Fanning

Law enforcement officials in Uvalde have asked the media to leave the school district headquarters or they will be criminally charged with trespassing, according to a video posted on social media. The 19-second video, shared by CNN correspondent Shimon Prokupecz on Wednesday, shows four law enforcement officers standing in the parking lot of the Uvalde Consolidated School District Headquarters. One official tells reporters: “Just so that you know, Uvalde PD is en route and once they get here, they will start issuing criminal tresspasses for the property.” Another officer clarified in the video that Uvalde Police urged officials at the school district that they were to be given an initial warning. Prokupecz said on Twitter he was at the district’s headquarters to report on Uvalde’s School District Police Chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo. According to Prokupecz, a school spokesperson came out to meet reporters before a live shot to say the school would release a statement. However, she refused to answer Prokupecz’s questions about an unlocked door at Robb Elementary School, he said in a tweet. Prokupecz also tweeted the school’s statement, which he said did not address his questions.  
Matt Stieb

The law enforcement sideshow to the school shooting in Texas continues to unfurl a week after the attack in Uvalde that killed 19 young children and two adults.On Tuesday, ABC News reported that the Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety investigation into the shooting. The decision reportedly came soon after DPS director Col. Steven McCraw stated at a news conference on Friday that the local police decision to delay entering the classroom where the shooter locked himself in was “the wrong decision” and did not follow protocol. McCraw explained that Pete Arredondo, the police chief of Uvalde schools who was the commander on scene, improperly identified the situation as one involving a barricaded suspect, not an active shooter. Due in part to this decision, more than a dozen officers inside Robb Elementary School did not enter the fourth-grade classroom for over an hour after the first officers arrived. During the standoff, at least one student called 911 from inside the classroom, asking to “please send the police now.”
Fred Lambert

Elon Musk has requested that all Tesla employees stop remote work and come back to the office for 40+ hours per week or they will be let go. Like every other company, Tesla has allowed remote work for every role where it is possible since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. As the pandemic subsides, those companies have been reevaluating their remote working policies. Many of them have come to the conclusion that workers are just as if not more productive when remote working and have decided to allow workers to continue to work remotely. Others have been incentivizing employees to come back to the office. Now it’s Tesla’s turn, and the company definitely falls under the latter category though perhaps “incentives” isn’t the right word in this case. CEO Elon Musk sent a series of emails yesterday that basically requests employees come back to the office or be terminated:
By Brad Reed | Raw Story

Reporter Heidi Przbyia on Wednesday broke down new revelations about Michigan GOP operatives launching what she describes as an "unprecedented" effort to recruit poll workers to directly contest elections at polling places across the state. As Przbyia reported in Politico, the plan is to "install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys" so they can challenge votes in real time. Speaking about the report on CNN, Przbyia outlined just how much this could disrupt the voting process on election day.
The 52-page document was obtained by BuzzFeed News in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Jason Leopold BuzzFeed News Reporter, Ken Bensinger BuzzFeed News Reporter

A Justice Department probe found that members of the Obama administration did not seek to reveal the identity of Michael Flynn “for political purposes or other inappropriate reasons,” a newly disclosed report reveals. The document details the results of a monthslong investigation into the so-called unmasking of Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser to then-president Donald Trump before he resigned in February 2017 in the wake of the revelation that he had lied about phone conversations he held with Russia’s ambassador to the US. Republicans later accused officials in the Obama administration of using their positions to reveal anonymized names in classified documents, known in the intelligence community as unmasking, in order to target individuals in Trump’s orbit. In May 2020, Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, ordered an investigation into the practice of unmasking. That review, conducted by John Bash — at the time the US attorney for the Western District of Texas — was finished the following September without finding any evidence of wrongdoing. Although Bash’s conclusions, including his decision not to prosecute anyone, were first reported in late 2020, the report itself has not previously been seen by the public. The full 52-page document, which had been classified top secret, was obtained by BuzzFeed News in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and is being shared here for the first time in its entirety.
Aaron Blake | The Washington Post

Among the many GOP efforts to counterprogram the Russia investigation with thinly constructed conspiracy theories, one of the most persistent ones was the so-called unmasking of Michael Flynn. The idea was that Obama administration officials deliberately targeted Donald Trump associates — and particularly Flynn — by requesting the disclosure of their names in intelligence reports before Trump took office, doing so for political purposes. This fed into long-running allegations of the government “spying” on Trump, who chose Flynn as his national security adviser. We knew before that this theory had fallen apart. We now know just how spectacularly. BuzzFeed News late Tuesday revealed a previously top-secret Justice Department report that details the findings of a review ordered by Trump’s attorney general, William P. Barr. The report is a resounding rejection of the conspiracy theories, which were seeded and fertilized throughout Trump’s four years in office by Trump allies and GOP members of Congress. Essentially, the idea was that the Obama officials might have sought the identity of Flynn in intelligence detailing his December 2016 calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then leaked details for political purposes. (Flynn would later plead guilty to lying to the FBI about these calls.) And there were valid questions early on about the Obama administration’s use of unmasking, as we wrote in 2017.
Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — The harm to African Americans that started with slavery persists to this day through systemic discrimination that requires California to make "comprehensive reparations" and extensive reforms in housing, education and the justice system, according to a sweeping report scheduled for release Wednesday by a first-in-the-nation state reparations task force. The panel, whose recommendations pertain to California, also urged the creation of a special office charged with providing a pathway for financial reparations for Black residents, according to a draft version of the report examined by USA TODAY. At more than 500 pages, the task force interim report extensively chronicles centuries of racial oppression from the start of slavery here in the 1600s to present-day inequities experienced by Black Americans in California and the rest of the country. It includes recommendations for repairing the damage in more than a dozen categories.
Kate S. Petersen, USA TODAY

On May 24, a shooter opened fire at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school, killing 19 children and two adults. Since the shooting, some social media users have claimed the Robb Elementary School shooting suspect, Salvador Ramos, was not a U.S. citizen and was in the country illegally. "Illegal Alien Salvatore Ramos, (sic) 18 years old, shot & killed 14 students & 1 teacher in Uvalde, Texas," reads a May 24 Facebook post. The post garnered more than 200 interactions in three days. An array of other social media posts making similar claims also circulated widely. The claim gained additional traction when Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, also called Ramos an "illegal alien" in a since-deleted tweet, according to the Associated Press. (Gosar did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.) However, the claim is wrong. Two high-ranking Texas state officials confirmed that Ramos was a U.S. citizen.
By Bob Brigham | Raw Story

The far-right is already planning strategies for investigating the Biden administration under the assumption that Republicans will win the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections. Axios reported Tuesday on a two-day retreat held on Maryland's Eastern Shore. "If the GOP wins control in the midterms, leaders want to kick off high-profile investigations as soon as the new Congress is seated. Republicans plan to draw on investigative power from allies across Washington," Axios reported. "The retreat was hosted by the Heritage Foundation, the Conservative Partnership Institute and the American Accountability Foundation, a nonprofit run by Trump administration alumni that's dogged Biden nominees with independent investigative work."
nmusumeci@insider.com (Natalie Musumeci)

"Sources that Texans once saw as iron-clad and completely reliable have now been proven false,"  the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas or CLEAT said in a statement released Tuesday night. "This false information has exacerbated ill-informed speculation which has, in turn, created a hotbed of unreliability when it comes to finding the truth," CLEAT said. Texas authorities have faced intense backlash for changing their story more than a dozen times about what happened before, during, and after the May 24 shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary School, which left 19 children and two teachers dead. "There has been a great deal of false and misleading information in the aftermath of this tragedy," the police union said, adding, "Some of the information came from the very highest levels of government and law enforcement." Additionally, the police union advised its more than 25,000 members "to cooperate fully with all official governmental investigations into actions relating to the law enforcement response to the Uvalde mass shooting."
Steven Lee Myers and Stuart A. Thompson | The New York Times

On March 30, the young man accused of the mass shooting at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo surfed through a smorgasbord of racist and antisemitic websites online. On BitChute, a video sharing site known for hosting right-wing extremism, he listened to a lecture on the decline of the American middle class by a Finnish extremist. On YouTube he found a lurid video of a car driving through Black neighborhoods in Detroit. Over the course of the week that followed, his online writing shows, he lingered in furtive chat rooms on Reddit and 4chan but also read articles on race in HuffPost and Medium. He watched local television news reports of gruesome crimes. He toggled between “documentaries” on extremist websites and gun tutorials on YouTube. The young man, who was indicted by a grand jury last week, has been portrayed by the authorities and some media outlets as a troubled outcast who acted alone when he killed 10 Black people in the grocery store and wounded three more. In fact, he dwelled in numerous online communities where he and others consumed and shared racist and violent content.
The claims have gotten more outlandish. The silence -- even from former President Donald Trump's strongest supporters -- has become more conspicuous. It should no longer be a surprise that, after he loses or his candidate loses an election, Trump amplifies false and easily discredited claims of fraud. He did it way back in 2012, when Mitt Romney lost but Trump didn't buy it, again in early 2016, when Sen. Ted Cruz beat him in the Iowa caucuses, and even after he won the presidency but lost the popular vote. But unlike his false claims about the 2020 election, his most recent insinuations of voter fraud are being almost entirely ignored. That happened in Pennsylvania, where Trump-endorsed Mehmet Oz didn't follow Trump's advice to declare victory before all votes were counted in the Senate race and a recount is now proceeding with Oz still in the lead. Now comes Georgia, where Trump-backed candidates were blown out in the highest-profile competitive primaries last week. Trump on Tuesday circulated a blog entry citing as "obvious fraud" the fact that Gov. Brian Kemp got nearly 74% of the vote in the GOP primary -- since "it doesn't happen" that candidates win in such lopsided fashion. (Actually, plenty of incumbents win primaries by that margin or more.)
Zeleb.es

From Christchurch to Buffalo, white supremacy has been mentioned over and over again as the cause that has incited mass shootings in the United States and elsewhere. Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson has been singled out as the biggest promoter of these views, but how true are in these allegations?
By Aaron Cooper, Shimon Prokupecz and Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) Pete Arredondo, the embattled Uvalde school police chief who led the flawed law enforcement response to last week's school shooting and has remained out of the public eye since, spoke exclusively to CNN on Wednesday and declined to answer substantive questions about the massacre. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Arredondo has not responded to a request for a follow-up interview with the Texas Rangers, who are investigating the shooting at Robb Elementary. Yet outside his home Wednesday, Arredondo told CNN's Aaron Cooper, "I am in contact with DPS everyday." And outside his office minutes later, he told CNN's Shimon Prokupecz that he's not going to release any further information while funerals are ongoing. "We're going to be respectful to the family," he said. "We're going to do that eventually. Whenever this is done and the families quit grieving, then we'll do that obviously."
Joan Biskupic
By Joan Biskupic, CNN legal analyst & Supreme Court biographer

CNN — Supreme Court officials are escalating their search for the source of the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, taking steps to require law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits, three sources with knowledge of the efforts have told CNN. Some clerks are apparently so alarmed over the moves, particularly the sudden requests for private cell data, that they have begun exploring whether to hire outside counsel. The court’s moves are unprecedented and the most striking development to date in the investigation into who might have provided Politico with the draft opinion it published on May 2. The probe has intensified the already high tensions at the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority is poised to roll back a half-century of abortion rights and privacy protections. Chief Justice John Roberts met with law clerks as a group after the breach, CNN has learned, but it is not known whether any systematic individual interviews have occurred.
Travis Caldwell Ashley Killough
By Travis Caldwell, Jason Hanna and Ashley Killough, CNN

CNN — With more funerals and visitations scheduled Wednesday for victims of the deadliest US school shooting in nearly 10 years, more changes in authorities’ narrative of how the May 24 massacre unfolded in the South Texas city of Uvalde are emerging. The Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS, now says the door the shooter used to access Robb Elementary was closed, though not locked, when he entered before killing 21 people there. That’s a change from last week, when the department’s Director Col. Steven McCraw said the back door had been propped open by a teacher. On Tuesday, its spokesperson Travis Considine told the Associated Press the teacher closed the door once she realized a shooter was on campus, but the door did not lock. The department’s press secretary confirmed Tuesday to CNN the AP report was accurate. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed after an 18-year-old gunman entered adjoining classrooms and opened fire.
CBS News

The Robb Elementary School teacher who propped open an exterior door that law enforcement said a gunman used to get inside and kill 19 students and two teachers had closed the door but it did not lock, state police said Tuesday. Investigators initially said the teacher had propped the door open with a rock and did not remove it before Salvador Ramos, 18, entered the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. Investigators have now determined that the teacher, who has not been identified, removed the rock and closed the door when she realized there was a shooter on campus but that it did not lock, said Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Considine said the teacher initially propped the door open but ran back inside to get her phone and call 911 when Ramos crashed his truck.
Placing operatives as poll workers and building a "hotline" to friendly attorneys are among the strategies to be deployed in Michigan and other swing states.
By Heidi Przybyla

Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys. The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts. “Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger,” said Matthew Seifried, the RNC’s election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO.
BY MICHAEL TARM and COREY WILLIAMS

CHICAGO (AP) — Even as the nation reeled over the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, multiple mass shootings happened elsewhere over the Memorial Day weekend in areas both rural and urban. Single-death incidents still accounted for most gun fatalities. Gunfire erupted in the predawn hours of Sunday at a festival in the town of Taft, Oklahoma, sending hundreds of revelers scattering and customers inside the nearby Boots Café diving for cover. Eight people ages 9 to 56 were shot, and one of them died. Six children ages 13 to 15 were wounded Saturday night in a touristy quarter of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Two groups got into an altercation, and two people in one of them pulled guns and started shooting. Ten people were wounded, and three law enforcement officers injured, in a shooting incident at a Memorial Day nighttime street gathering in Charleston, South Carolina.
Steve Benen

From a political perspective, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has received nothing but good news of late, including his landslide victory last week in a primary runoff election. But from a legal perspective, the Republican’s troubles continue to multiply. The Associated Press reported the other day on Paxton’s newest problem. Circling back to our earlier coverage, the controversy stems from Paxton’s December 2020 efforts, which included asking the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate election results he didn’t like. In case anyone needs a refresher, after Donald Trump lost his re-election bid, Paxton sued four states that had the audacity to support the Democratic ticket — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — arguing that he disapproved of their pandemic-era election procedures. Paxton asked the high court to block those states from voting in the Electoral College. Reuters’ Brad Heath explained at the time, Paxton was “literally asking the Supreme Court to throw out the results of other states’ presidential elections, set aside the millions of votes cast in states that are not Texas, and have other state legislatures make Trump president.”
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