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US Monthly Headline News March 2023
Story by Tomas Kassahun

The Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic Black church in Washington, D.C., has filed a $22 million lawsuit against the Proud Boys. The lawsuit, filed against the Proud Boys organization and five of its leaders and allies, stems from a “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. on Dec. 12, 2020.

The post DC AME Church Files $22 Million Lawsuit Against The Proud Boys: ‘We Will Not Shrink In The Face Of This’ appeared first on Blavity. That’s when the far-right group vandalized several historic Black churches in D.C. and tore down their Black Lives Matter banners. The post DC AME Church Files $22 Million Lawsuit Against The Proud Boys: ‘We Will Not Shrink In The Face Of This’ appeared first on Blavity. That’s when the far-right group vandalized several historic Black churches in D.C. and tore down their Black Lives Matter banners.
By Andy Rose, CNN

CNN — A federal judge in Tennessee on Friday temporarily blocked the state from enforcing a ban on public drag show performances, hours before the new law was set to take effect. US District Court Judge Thomas L. Parker issued an order delaying enforcement of the measure for at least 14 days as he considers whether the ban is unconstitutional.

“At this point, the Court finds that the Statute is likely both vague and overly-broad,” Parker wrote in the order, adding that the state has so far failed to provide a “compelling government interest” for why it should regulate drag performances so severely.

The legislation – signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee earlier this month – seeks to limit “adult cabaret performances” on public property so as to shield them from the view of children, threatening violators with a misdemeanor and repeat offenders with a felony. The ban specifically includes “male or female impersonators” who perform in a way that is “harmful to minors.” It was set to go into effect April 1.
Story by Sarah Rumpf

A judge just dealt a devastating blow to the Fox media empire in the defamation case filed by Dominion Voting Systems, denying Fox’s motions for summary judgment in their entirety, and issuing a partial summary judgment in Dominion’s favor that gives them a “W” for key elements needed to prove their legal claims and allowing their $1.6 billion defamation case to proceed to trial.

The lawsuit filed by Dominion accuses Fox News of airing false claims about Dominion’s voting machines related to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Pre-trial discovery in the litigation has revealed a trove of documents in which Fox’s on-air personalities and top executives exchanged emails and text messages acknowledging Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election, that his claims the election was stolen from him via fraud were unfounded, and lamenting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A new trove of documents with previously redacted comments was released Friday.
Story by Adam Klasfeld

In a “rare” ruling, Dominion Voting Systems scored blockbuster victories against Fox News on multiple issues before their upcoming blockbuster trial next month.
Story by Lillian Rizzo

A Delaware judge on Friday said Dominion Voting's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. and its networks could go to trial in April.
Story by Kalyn Womack

The Florida chapters of the NAACP has warned Black people to not move to or visit the state of Florida amidst their aggressive legislation against African American studies, per NBC Miami. Their concern is that these education bills may roll over into socioeconomic legislation affecting Black people.

Can we be honest? The only reason to visit Florida is for the theme parks and maybe the beach for spring break, but even that is becoming tired. Gov. Ron DeSantis has been signing bills left and right for the past two years that could convince any Black person not to move there unless they were fine with their kids being barred access to books like it’s Fahrenheit 451. Given the restrictions of anti-racist learning, the NAACP Miami-Dade branch voted this month to ask the national NAACP to advise Black folks to avoid the Sunshine state completely.
Story by Bronwen Weatherby

Awhite-supremacist podcast host has been found guilty of stirring up racial hatred, with a judge describing his recordings as “a stain on humanity”. James Allchurch, 51, from Pembrokeshire, Wales, was convicted of ten out of 15 counts of distributing audio material to stir up racial hatred over a two-year period. Following a trial at Swansea Civic Centre, Judge Huw Rees told the self-proclaimed “avowed racist” and Adolf Hitler supporter that he faces a prison sentence measured in years not months.

Judge Rees adjourned sentencing until April 28 for a pre-sentence report to be carried out. After the verdicts were returned on Friday, the judge said: “The language the jury has had to put up with is vile language, and it is unacceptable in my view that anybody should wish to express themselves in this way. “What I have heard over the last fortnight I regard as a stain on humanity.” This is a court of reality and unfortunately the reality of this defendant's world is entirely different from most right-thinking people.
Story by Connor Surmonte

Democratic megadonor George Soros fired back against allegations he is connected to the Manhattan district attorney prosecuting Donald Trump, RadarOnline.com has learned. On Friday morning, just hours after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former President Trump on criminal charges, Soros spoke out to deny all claims that he is linked to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

According to billionaire Soros, he never donated to Bragg’s campaign for Manhattan DA and “doesn’t know” him on a personal level. “Steve, I wrote this piece in the Wall Street Journal,” Soros told Semafor editor Steve Clemons on Friday. “Anyone who wants to understand why I’ve donated to reform-minded prosecutors should read it.”

“As for Alvin Bragg, as a matter of fact I did not contribute to his campaign and I don’t know him,” the 92-year-old continued. “I think some on the right would rather focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories than on the serious charges against the former president.”
Story by Arthur Delaney

WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday night that a Democratic prosecutor’s criminal charges against former President Donald Trump represent nothing less than an assault on the United States of America. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has irreparably damaged our country” in an effort to tilt the 2024 presidential election in favor of Democrats, according to the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill.

“As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump,” McCarthy said in a prepared statement. “The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account.” McCarthy was one of several Republicans not just criticizing Bragg’s charges, which remain under seal, but suggesting that Trump should not be prosecuted by a Democrat for violating the law under any circumstances.
Story by Kory Grow

No Jumper, a popular podcast whose roots are in hip-hop culture, has allegedly transitioned into a platform for white supremacy, antisemitism, and misogyny, according to a Media Matters for America investigation. The news site, which describes itself as “a progressive research center that monitors, analyzes, & corrects right-wing misinformation,” points to interviews that host Adam Grandmaison, aka Adam22, has conducted with Nick Fuentes, Richard Spencer, and members of the Nation of Islam in which each expressed bigoted viewpoints that Grandmaison did not challenge. “Did I just do my part to sort of like make being racist seem chill to people?” Grandmaison wondered aloud after interviewing Fuentes.

The podcast has a formidable reach: 4.2 million YouTube subscribers, 3 million Instagram followers, 2.1 million TikTok followers, and 1.2 million Twitter followers. The program is also available via Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud and other mainstream platforms. In its infancy, the podcast featured interviews with Rapsody, A$AP Ferg, Krayzie Bone, Gwar, and even Tay Zonday. Media Matters reports that No Jumpers started featuring problematic guests over the past year. One co-host, the news site claims, reportedly quit the show after the Spencer interview. “What the f*** are we doing?” the host, AD (aka Armand Douglas), said. “Why are we platforming this guy? We’ve got to hold everybody accountable, including Adam.”
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

After a Manhattan grand jury indicted Donald Trump late Thursday afternoon on reportedly 34 felony charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took one more step to preserve the rule of law: Friday morning, via his General Counsel, he sent the top three Republican House Chairmen attempting to interfere in his office’s investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump a stern warning.

The letter, addressed to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Oversight Chairman James Comer, and Administration Chairman Bryan Steil spans six-pages. Its letterhead does not say District Attorney’s Office, but “District Attorney,” and has Bragg’s name in the upper corner, although it is signed by Bragg’s General Counsel, Leslie B. Dubeck. Politico has published the full letter.

It clearly states Bragg is drawing a red line: “What neither Mr. Trump nor Congress may do is interfere with the ordinary course of proceedings in New York State.” The letter also accuses the trio of “an improper and dangerous usurpation” and “attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation.” And it warns them against “unlawful political interference.”
Story by Mark Joseph Stern

Following their successful effort to nullify the District of Columbia’s revised criminal code earlier this month, House Republicans set their sights on a new target: a set of modest reforms designed to increase accountability and transparency in D.C. law enforcement. Republicans were clearly hoping for a do-over of the criminal code debacle, forcing a difficult vote that would divide the Democratic Party and subject moderates to “soft-on-crime” smears.

It appears that they badly miscalculated. A Wednesday hearing on the GOP bill went disastrously for Republicans as white GOP congressmen lobbed blatantly racist insults at the District (whose population is majority-minority). Just one day later, after intense lobbying from the Congressional Black Caucus, President Joe Biden declared that he would veto the override bill if it reached his desk. The Democrats’ united front provides a night-and-day contrast to their treatment of the criminal code nullification bill. It’s a sign that the party is shifting back to its previous support for D.C. autonomy. It’s also evidence that Biden hasn’t abandoned support for police reform despite his tough-on-crime rhetoric earlier this month. And just as importantly, it’s proof that even as he shifts right in advance of 2024, the president will still stand up to a belligerent police union that will pillory his position as an attack on cops.
Story by Justin Rohrlich

The executive director of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association (SJPOA) is accused of importing massive amounts of fentanyl and other illicit prescription drugs into the U.S.—even using her organization’s official UPS account as part of the alleged scheme—then blaming it all on her housekeeper when confronted by the feds.

For eight years up until January, Joanne Marian Segovia, 64, used her home and work computers to get multiple-kilogram shipments of medications, including Zolpidem, Tapentadol, and Tramadol, sent to her home and office from China, India, and other far-flung locales, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in federal court. The packages were labeled as “Wedding Party Favors,” “Gift Makeup,” “Chocolate and Sweets,” and “Health Product,” the complaint states.

Segovia was swept up in a broader investigation by Homeland Security agents into a trafficking network shipping Indian-produced drugs into the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the complaint. When investigators searched and decrypted a “network operative’s” smartphone, they discovered two messages that identified a “J Segovia,” with an address in San Jose, it says. Agents then found dozens of parcels had been sent to Segovia’s home, according to the complaint.
Story by Jonathan Dienst and Alex Seitz-Wald and Laura Jarrett

Former President Donald Trump is facing about 30 document fraud-related charges in New York City connected to hush money he allegedly paid to cover up affairs, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News after he was indicted Thursday.

The exact charges are unknown because the indictment remains under seal until Trump — who is campaigning to reclaim the presidency in 2024 — is expected to appear in court for his arraignment Tuesday, though Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg could unveil them sooner.

The case is just one of at least three criminal probes into Trump, who during his single term in office also earned the ignoble distinction of being the only U.S. president in history to be impeached twice.
Story by Josephine Harvey

Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated Central Park Five, had just one word to say on former President Donald Trump’s indictment Thursday: “Karma.” Salam was among five Black and brown teenagers wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white woman in New York’s Central Park, a case that was explored in the 2019 Netflix series “When They See Us.” Salaam served nearly seven years in prison before he and the other wrongfully accused teens were exonerated in 2002.

In 1989, before any of the five teens had been tried, Trump, then a Manhattan real-estate developer, took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty to be reinstated in New York. People involved with the case later said that although Trump’s ads never explicitly called for the death penalty for the defendants, they played a major role in securing a conviction.
Story by Tommy Christopher

Democrats at a hearing revolted when Republican Chairman Jim Jordan falsely claimed that the January 6 committee did not afford Republicans the opportunity to “cross-examine one single witness” during its entire tenure.

The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing Thursday that devolved into chaos when Democratic members were not permitted to cross-examine Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, resulting in several minutes of near-brawling.

Quite a bit later in the hearing, Jordan decided to revive the argument by claiming that the January 6 committee, which included Republican members Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, did not allow Republicans to cross-examine witnesses:
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) subcommittee is missing some key details in their move to investigate President Joe Biden's administration for "weaponizing government," MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace argued on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House."

She pointed to Democrats that attempted to use the committee to talk about what they identified as "real threats" and "real weaponization."

Non-voting member Del. Stacey Plaskett (ID-VT) argued that the Republicans on the committee are sending letters trying to interfere in ongoing Justice Department investigations of the former president. The latest efforts came from Jordan, demanding that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg appear before the committee to answer questions. Bragg doesn't serve under the jurisdiction of Congress. He's also prevented from giving congress "inside" information because grand jury investigations are secret.

"That is not appropriate," Plaskett said. "That is not what this Congress is supposed to be about. That is an abuse of the power of this body, of this committee, and that is the weaponization of Congress, plain and simple."
Story by Ewan Palmer

For several weeks now—well before Donald Trump's indictment made history—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been embarking on what could be considered a shadow national presidential campaign ahead of an expected 2024 confirmation. Since February, DeSantis has spoken to police unions in New York, Philadelphia and the suburbs of Chicago to discuss his tough-on-crime credentials and the policies which he says protect law enforcement in Florida.

The governor recently spoke to Republicans in Iowa, where around 1,000 people saw him appear at two separate events in Davenport and Des Moines on March 10 to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival, which has also seen DeSantis visit states such as Texas, California, Alabama.

Elsewhere, DeSantis recently gave an interview to Fox Nation's Piers Morgan in which he openly criticized Trump's leadership style—an eventual retaliation to the former president launching attack after attack on the Florida governor amid claims he is due to enter the 2024 GOP primary race.
By Kara Scannell, CNN

CNN — Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter – the first time in American history that a current or former president has faced criminal charges. The indictment has been filed under seal and will be announced in the coming days. The charges are not publicly known at this time, one source told CNN.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office will reach out to Trump’s attorneys to discuss his surrender to face an arraignment. CNN has reached out to Trump’s attorneys for comment. The DA’s office has been investigating the former president in connection with his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving adult film star Stormy Daniels that dates to the 2016 presidential election.
Story by Anna Commander

Russian state media called out former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying that he is looked at as "the destroyer of America" amid discussions of the 2024 presidential election. While speaking with Russian presenter Vladimir Solovyov about Trump, the pundits played a soundbite of the former president's interview with Fox host Sean Hannity. Trump can be heard saying, "Ukraine is being obliterated." The clip of the broadcast was shared on Twitter by Julia Davis, founder of the Russian Media Monitor watchdog group.

Soloyov responds, "And it will be destroyed. Who needs it? Who needs Ukraine where they don't respect Russians?" Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, then responds, "Trump is coming. Think of him as you will, I always saw him and still see him as a destroyer of America."
Story by Will Daniel

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen came out swinging in a Thursday speech at a National Association for Business Economics conference. “When the President and I took office in January 2021, we inherited a financial stability apparatus at Treasury that had been decimated,” she said in prepared remarks, arguing that Trump administration budget cuts left her without the proper resources to regulate banks when she took office.

After the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this month, along with demise of the crypto-focused Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, Yellen and other regulators have been under fire from politicians and Wall Street for missing clear red flags. Konrad Alt, cofounder of the investment firm Klaros Group, who previously served as counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, told Fortune earlier this month that the main issue at SVB—not accounting for the risk of rising interest rates—has been well-known for years.

“‘The fact is, we’ve known that this was a gap for a long time….regulators should have caught it, and they didn’t catch it,” he said. But the Treasury Secretary pinned much of the blame for the failure to foresee SVB’s collapse on her lack of resources and deregulation efforts that happened after Dodd-Frank’s creation in 2010 this week. “Regulatory requirements have been loosened in recent years. I believe it is appropriate to assess the impact of these deregulatory decisions and take any necessary actions in response,” she said.

It is Trump and the GOP who have weaponized the government not the Dems

Story by Sarah K. Burris

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman has been criticized for being too close to Donald Trump and holding back information that congressional investigations or impeachment panels could have used to score more news for her book. In her latest report with Michael Schmidt, she takes a hit at her golden goose. The Wednesday report nails the former president for hypocrisy after he complained that the government was being weaponized against him. "He would know," the title says.

“He was always telling me that we need to use the F.B.I. and I.R.S. to go after people — it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now,” the report quoted Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly. It isn't the first time he's said it. In 2022, Kelly told Schmidt that Trump wanted to target Andrew McCabe and James Comey.

Trump fired Andrew McCabe mere days before his retirement, barring his federal pension, simply because he criticized Trump's role in the Russia scandal. Trump was furious that McCabe's wife supported Hillary Clinton. In fact, he said Trump was obsessed with her. McCabe ultimately got an extremely rare and invasive audit by the IRS that turned up nothing. Comey's clash with Trump became infamous, as he was fired after refusing to give Trump absolute loyalty.
By William Kleinknecht

Kleinknecht is a longtime political journalist and author of States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America

Media coverage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s all-but-announced candidacy for president is already in full frenzy, and so far the script is exactly as his handlers would like it to be. The governor regularly opens up new fronts in the culture wars, sowing alarm over critical race theory, transgender rights, or border policies. In response, liberal pundits fall into the trap of accentuating the very issues DeSantis has chosen to fire up his base.

Omitted from the public debate about DeSantis’s policies is almost any discussion of his actual record of governance—what exactly he has delivered to the citizens of his state, especially those without seven-figure incomes and lush investment portfolios.
Story by Brad Reed

Republicans vowed to launch a flurry of investigations into the Biden administration upon retaking control of the House of Representatives, but Vox's Christian Paz argues that these probes all "seem to be flopping" so far. Specifically, Paz argues that Republicans made a significant strategic error by not concentrating on hearings of issues that polls show matter to voters, such as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan or the origins of the coronavirus.

Instead, the House GOP led off with hearings about conservatives' tweets supposedly being suppressed, which he writes "may only truly resonate with the most partisan, internet-pilled Republican voters." "There was kind of this broad perception that it was seen as being like a revenge list or a tit-for-tat, or a ‘get even’ list, and that it wasn’t really particularly focused on... the priorities that people want Congress to focus on," Navigator Research chief pollster Bryan Bennett tells Paz.
Story by Richard Burkard

The Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump seemed to be days from an indictment. But now, it might take a one-month spring break. Several New York news outlets reported the grand jury assembled by District Attorney Alvin Bragg would not meet Wednesday. It’s the second Wednesday in a row that a scheduled hearing date has been canceled.

But an anonymous source claims the grand jury will not meet at all during the spring holidays of New York Public Schools. Schools will be closed from Thursday, April 6 through Friday, April 14 for the start of Passover season and Spring Recess.
Story by Maya Boddie

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) called out the blatant hypocrisy of House GOP members during a Wednesday Judiciary Committee hearing. "We're here because the Republican Party — that's done such a great job over many years standing up for the police — no longer back the blue," the congressman said.

@Acyn posted a brief clip from the hearing, writing, "Swalwell just dragging Republicans with their own tweets and posts." In the video, Swalwell mentions a recent hearing, where the House Republicans "brought a witness who had just recently tweeted, F**k cops." Swalwell emphasized, "Anyone on earth could've come to that hearing and they brought someone that said "f**k cops?"
Story by David Edwards

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) argued that the United States is "not a democracy" in response to teachers union president Randi Weingarten's call to enact gun bans similar to ones in Australia and New Zealand. At an American Federation of Teachers (AFT) meeting Tuesday morning, Weingarten had addressed the Nashville school shooting by calling for a reaction similar to "other great democracies."

"How many lives will be shattered before we have the courage to do what Scotland did, what Australia did, what New Zealand did, what other great democracies do? We must solve this epidemic, and that's up to us," she said. Boebert spoke about Weingarten's remarks after right-wing host Charlie Kirk speculated that the teachers union president wanted to repeal the Second Amendment.

"And, you know, maybe one of the things that we need to address with the Democrat party is, you played a clip from the teachers union with Randi there talking," Boebert said. "Maybe one thing we need to address is we're not a democracy! So quit with that!" "Maybe that's where you're getting it wrong," she added. "It's saying that we are a democracy. We are a constitutional republic."
Story by Brandon Gage

United States Congressman Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) attempted to redefine reality during an Oversight Committee hearing in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, just two days after six people – three students and three staffers – were killed in a mass shooting at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Story by Travis Gettys

One of the nation's most prominent conservative judges warned that the Republican Party presented a grave peril to democracy. Former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, who famously told Mike Pence the vice president did not have the authority to alter election results, made clear in a new interview with The Bulwark that the ongoing threat from Donald Trump and his GOP allies had only grown more ominous since Jan. 6, 2021.

"With the former president’s and his Republican Party’s determined denial of Jan. 6, their refusal to acknowledge that the former president lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square, and their promise that the 2024 election will not be 'stolen' from them again as they maintain it was in 2020," Luttig said, "America’s Democracy and the Rule of Law are in constitutional peril — still -- and there is no end to the threat in sight."

The conservative legal icon memorably testified during the House select committee investigation that Congress must update the Electoral Count Act of 1887 or risk another attempt to subvert the will of voters, and he said this week that the failure to do so was undermining the rule of law.
Katelyn Polantz Paula Reid Zachary Cohen Devan Cole
By Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid, Zachary Cohen, Devan Cole and Tierney Sneed, CNN

CNN — A federal judge has decided that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with a recent federal court ruling.

But the judge said – in a ruling that remains under seal – that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to one of the sources.

The ruling from chief judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in Washington, DC, is a major win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is spearheading the Justice Department investigation. Pence still has the ability to appeal.

The former vice president said his team is “evaluating the court’s decision,” telling Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren in an interview Tuesday that “the requirements of my testimony going forward are a subject of our review right now, and I’ll have more to say about that in the days ahead.”
BY KATHERINE FUNG

Amassive spike in U.S. maternal deaths has abortion-rights and anti-abortion groups debating the cause of the nation's most fatal odds for expectant mothers in more than half a century. A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week said that maternal mortality—deaths that take place during pregnancy or within 42 days after delivery—shot up by 40 percent in 2021. The figure reaffirms America's position as the most dangerous wealthy country to live in when pregnant or while giving birth.

The pregnancy statistics come as reproductive rights remain one of the most hotly contested issues in the country. The Supreme Court's decision last June to overturn the constitutional right to abortion by revoking Roe v. Wade sparked nationwide protests and gave Democrats an unexpected boost in November's midterm elections. In the wake of that ruling, some states enacted trigger laws banning abortions, and Republican legislators introduced a flurry of bills seeking to further restrict access to the procedure.
Story by Meaghan Ellis

Anew analysis is pointing out the hypocritical flaws in Rep. James Comer's (R-Ky.) call for probes into what is being described as the "'weaponization' of government investigations." In the new piece, The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger began with an overview of Republican lawmakers' latest display of public outrage over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation into former President Donald Trump.

"Last week, Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) fired off a controversial missive to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, claiming Bragg was flirting with 'an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority' in his reportedly pending decision to indict former President Donald Trump," Sollenberger wrote. "The letter demanded funding records related to the probe and preemptively attacked any coming charges as 'a politically motivated prosecutorial decision.'”
Story by Matthew Chapman

On Monday, prosecutors in the Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's $130,000 hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels called David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer and a longtime ally of the former president, to the stand.

It's unclear immediately why Pecker, who was instrumental to bringing down Trump's former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, was called. But, wrote Jordan Rubin for MSNBC.com, a possible reason is to expose false claims by Robert Costello, a Trump-aligned lawyer who testified to the grand jury last week to try to discredit the claims made by Michael Cohen.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union' to make his case that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg needs to appear before Republicans and explain why he is investigatingDonald Trump, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) painted himself into a corner when he suggested Bragg might be subpoenaed.

With Bragg's office firing back at GOP House members who have been threatening to interfere in his investigation into the former president paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, Comer went back and forth with CNN's Jake Tapper over the propriety of federal interference in a state matter. Things came to a head when the CNN host asked if the House Republican would subpoena Bragg. "Let me ask you if he refuses to come in willingly, will you subpoena him?" Tapper pressed.
MSNBC

Former Attorney General Eric Holder joins Jen Psaki for an exclusive interview to discuss Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation into former President Trump, the threats Bragg has faced, and Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran testifying before the grand jury in the documents probe. On Congressman Jim Jordan's letters to DA Bragg, Holder says "The notion that Jim Jordan who ignored a subpoena to testify in the January 6th investigation, would now have the temerity to inject himself into a state/local prosecution is the height of hypocrisy."
Story by Maya Boddie

U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) took the act of projecting to a new level by suggesting Democrats recently discovered the words "ban" and "control," and complaining the party tends to overuse the terms. The senator tweeted, "The Democrats simply can't help themselves; the words "ban" and "control" have entered their daily vocabulary." Blackburn's comment comes just days after House Republicans passed the "Parents' Bill of Rights," which will likely lead to "book bans and targeting of LGBTQ children."
Tom Boggioni

During an appearance on MSNBC, the former assistant director for counterintelligence at the F.B.I. accused Donald Trump of jumping the gun on his possible indictment so that he can get his most rabid followers time to plan and organize violent protests.

Speaking with host Alicia Melendez, Frank Figliuzzi first talked about the frightening number of death threats that have flooded the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, before touching on the former president's call to arms when he falsely announced he was going to be arrested last Tuesday.

"This is serious business here and unfortunately, it is only just begun," he told the host. "Remember, we have Trump driving the narrative a week ago today announcing he was gonna be indicted, never happened. He is running the show right now."
Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

In Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Free State of Florida,” a charter school principal was forced to resign after sixth-grade students were shown images of Michelangelo’s notably nude sculpture, “David.” Apparently the horrors of art and anatomy were too much for some parents, and because DeSantis has empowered adults dippy enough to consider Renaissance art “pornography,” the principal was — in the spirit of freedom — shown the door.  David’s man-bits might be visible, but as DeSantis tries to raise his national profile ahead of a likely GOP presidential primary campaign, it’s becoming apparent the Florida emperor has no clothes.

Things haven't gone well for Ron DeSanctimonius' expected presidential run
Consider the recent stumbles by the man GOP presidential primary frontrunner and former President Donald Trump has labeled “Ron DeSanctimonius” and, somehow more insultingly, “Rob.” DeSantis referred to Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine as “a territorial dispute” and was then admonished by Democrats and Republicans alike. So he flip-flopped in an interview with Piers Morgan and called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal.” Then on Friday he flop-flipped back to saying: “I care more about securing our own border in the United States than I do about the Russia-Ukraine border.”
Story by Zachary Leeman

Fox Business anchor Dagen McDowell broke from some of the praise the House-passed Parents Bill of Rights was receiving on Friday to argue Republicans should have done the opposite if education mattered to them.

The Parents Bill of Rights Act would require schools to publish their curriculum to the public and give parents far more influence over policies and materials. Democratic lawmakers like Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) took to the House floor this week to argue the bill would be used to limit education and ban books. In a more fiery moment, the congressman claimed “extreme MAGA Republicans” don’t want children to learn about the Holocaust.
Story by Meaghan Ellis

Anew analysis is shedding light on the behind-the-scenes battle brewing between Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and the network's primetime conservative host Tucker Carlson. Mediaite's Aidan McLaughlin offered a brief overview of the contention between Carlson and Scott.

"Carlson, according to sources inside and outside the network who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, has for years been at odds with Scott, a 26-year Fox News veteran who ascended to the top of the network in the wake of a series of sexual harassment scandals that dethroned Roger Ailes," McLaughlin wrote.

He continued, "Her efforts to maintain control of the network's often divisive coverage have run up against Carlson's penchant for courting controversy, his proud disregard for facts, and apparently unconditional backing from Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the top executives at Fox News parent company Fox Corporation." McLaughlin also highlighted remarks from insiders with knowledge of the strained relationship between Scott and Carlson.

Fox News' Tucker Carlson is attempting to spin a new conspiracy theory with a tall accusation involving the United States government. During his latest segment of "The Tucker Carlson Show" on Tuesday, the conservative primetime host claimed the U.S. government will be lacing the country's water supply with "SSRIs – selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors – in an effort to placate an increasingly dissatisfied population," Mediaite reports.

Broadcasting from Rio de Janeiro, Carlson expressed concern about the United States' low fertility rates. On multiple occasions, Carlson has leveled attacks at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) over her concerns about having children. In fact, last year, the Fox News host reportedly said claimed: "some liberals are 'offended by fertility and nature and the idea that people reproduce.'” During Tuesday's segment, Carlson revisited the same argument but went a step further this time.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, talks with Alex Wagner about how Jim Jordan and other House Republicans are using their position in government to attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and other who are investigating Donald Trump, as well as the GOP's politicization of January 6 inmates.

Republicans have been falsely accusing George Soros, a prominent Democratic donor and holocaust survivor, of being responsible for the prosecution of Donald Trump by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, despite the fact that Soros has never met, talked to, or donated to Bragg. Mehdi Hasan and Rev. Al Sharpton join the conversation.
Story by Alex Griffing • 57m ago

The Drudge Report, Matt Drudge’s right-leaning news aggregator ran a headline on Friday declaring former President Donald Trump threatened Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in a Truth Social post on Thursday night, which Trump deleted on Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Trump shared a link with a split-screen image of him holding a bat on one side with an image of Bragg’s head on the right.

Drudge’s headline on the post read, “PSYCHO DON!”

“THREATENS MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY,” read the second line of the headline.

The first part of the headline linked to a NY Post article, titled, “Trump posts disturbing baseball bat photo with Alvin Bragg, threatens ‘death and destruction.’” The latter headline linked to a New York Times report, titled, “Trump, Escalating Attacks, Raises Specter of Violence if He Is Charged.”
Story by Samaa Khullar

Former President Donald Trump warned early Friday morning of "potential death & destruction" should he be charged in the Manhattan "hush-money" criminal case. Trump on Truth Social raised the specter of violence ahead of potential criminal charges from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whom Trump said is a "degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA."

"What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?" Trump wrote at 1 am.
Story by Douglas Montero

FBI agents are accusing the CIA of allegedly covering up its association with two hijackers involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks, RadarOnline.com can reveal. The bombshell revelation emerged in a 21-page top-secret report detailing how the CIA tried to recruit two Al Qaeda members in southern California in a failed attempt to penetrate Osama bin Laden’s bloodthirsty terror network.

The report was compiled by Don Canestraro, an investigator for the Office of Military Commissions who submitted the damning report in 2021 at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba where the 9-11 hijackers faced trials for murder and terrorism.
Story by Stephen Silver

Donald Trump calls Alvin Bragg, the district attorney who may soon indict him, an “animal”: In a racially-tinged tirade on Truth Social, the former president also highlighted Bragg’s links to billionaire and conservative boogeyman George Soros.

Donald Trump and His Latest Rant
Donald Trump predicted last week that he would be indicted this week, although, with the delay of a pair of grand jury proceedings, it’s likely that any criminal charges for the ex-president will arrive next week at the earliest.

But in the meantime, Trump has been teeing off against the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in increasingly personal and cruel terms, going so far as to denounce Bragg as a “Soros-backed animal.”

“WHY WON’T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE? EVERYBODY SAYS THERE IS NO CRIME HERE. I DID NOTHING WRONG! IT WAS ALL MADE UP BY A CONVICTED NUT JOB WITH ZERO CREDIBILITY, WHO HAS BEEN DISPUTED BY HIGHLY RESPECTED PROFESSIONALS AT EVERY TURN,” Trump said in an all-caps Truth Social post Thursday. “BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY. HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL WHO JUST DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT. THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE. DISGRACEFUL!”
Story by Martin Pengelly in New York

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, on Thursday accused Republicans in the US Congress of interfering in his investigation of Donald Trump over a hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels.

A letter from House Republicans demanding testimony and documents related to the investigation “only came after Donald Trump created a false expectation that he would be arrested … and his lawyers repeatedly urged you to intervene”, Bragg wrote in a letter of his own. Such circumstances, he said, did not represent “a legitimate basis for congressional inquiry”.

Bragg published his letter as it became clear another day would pass without an indictment of the former US president for offences related to the $130,000 payment made in 2016 and potentially including falsification of business records, tax fraud and/or campaign finance violations.
Major blow to ex-president as Evan Corcoran loses legal bid to avoid giving notes and audio transcripts to investigators
Hugo Lowell

Donald Trump’s main lawyer – who was involved in turning over classified-marked documents at the Mar-a-Lago resort to the justice department last year – must provide his notes and audio transcripts to the criminal investigation after a federal appeals court rejected twin efforts to block the order.

The US appeals court for the DC circuit on Wednesday rejected two separate appeals from the former president and his lawyer Evan Corcoran to stop a sealed order, piercing attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine protections issued in a court decision last week.

In losing the appeal – a major defeat for Trump – Corcoran must provide additional testimony and produce documents to the grand jury hearing evidence about Trump’s potential unauthorized retention of national security materials at Mar-a-Lago – and possible obstruction of justice.
Story by Rebecca Beitsch

President Trump on Thursday called for the removal of every law enforcement official currently leading investigations into him. A busy morning on social media for Trump was capped with a post suggesting the leads of four different investigations into his conduct be removed from their post. Trump’s comments follow significant advances in each investigation.

“District Attorney Bragg is a danger to our Country, and should be removed immediately, along with Radical Lunatic Bombthrower Jack Smith, who is harassing and intimidating innocent people at levels not seen before, ‘Get Trump’ Letitia James, the worst Attorney General in the United States, and Atlanta D.A. Fani Willis, who is trying to make PERFECT phone calls into a plot to destroy America, but reigns over the most violent Crime Scene in America, and does nothing about it!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) is set to meet Monday with a grand jury assembled to hear evidence in a case reviewing whether Trump broke the law in organizing and concealing a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Story by Graeme Massie

Donald Trump sparked anger by posting a picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to the head of the Manhattan District Attorney leading an investigation into him.

Mr Trump posted an article to his social media platform Truth Social which included a composite picture of himself next to Alvin Bragg, who has accused the one-term president of creating “a false expectation” of being arrested this week.

The Manhattan grand jury is investigating hush money payments Mr Trump is accused of making to adult actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Opinion by Sarah Posner

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, according to a report from Talking Points Memo, has for years used his Facebook feed to promote racist, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic viewpoints and memes. Elected in 2020, the Republican is reportedly considering a run for governor next year. He is a rising star on the Christian right, and his cache of appalling social media posts is further evidence that there is no daylight between the movement that bills itself as being committed to “family values” and “religious freedom” and the swamps of the bigoted far right.

The lieutenant governor’s prolific Facebook posts promoted a hodgepodge of familiar right-wing conspiracy theories, blaming “globalists,” the “occult” and “the New World Order” for America’s woes. He used racist epithets against the Revs. William Barber and Al Sharpton, the civil rights activists, and claimed expressions of “white pride” aren’t racist. He rejected his own membership in the Black community, writing, “Why would I want to be part of a ‘community’ that sucks from the putrid tit of the government and then complains about getting sour milk?” He dabbled in antisemitic conspiracy theories and regularly posted homophobic and transphobic statements, among them calling homosexuality “a FILTHY ABOMINATION, that satisfies your degenerate, un-natural lust.” (Robinson hasn’t responded to requests for comment from Talking Points Memo or other outlets covering the story.)
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg served up an extensive lesson in American jurisprudence Thursday in his response to House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan’s letter demanding he provide communications and testify before Congress on his ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels. Jordan’s demand was seen by legal experts as a “purely political attack.” They note Jordan has no constitutional oversight authority over a duly-elected county district attorney.

Bragg is respectfully refusing Jordan’s demands. Thorough his office’s General Counsel, Bragg sent Jordan a five-page letter (below) filled with numerous citations of federal and state law and legal decisions up to and including from the U.S. Supreme Court, that offer the Judiciary Chairman instruction in the law and that support the District Attorney’s refusal.
Story by Brian Schwartz

A push from House Republicans to get Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to testify about his probe and expected indictment of former President Donald Trump is "unprecedented," an advisor to Bragg told GOP lawmakers Thursday.

The Manhattan DA's general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, offered a scathing response to GOP lawmakers in a letter addressed to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wisc. She called their request "an unprecedent inquiry into a pending local prosecution" that only came about after Trump "created a false expectation" that he would be arrested Tuesday.

The original letter from the three House Republicans on Monday requested testimony and documents from Bragg about the expected indictment of Trump in a case related to a hush-money payment his ex-fixer Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election. Trump was not arrested on Tuesday, and the grand jury deciding the former president's fate may not decide whether to indict him until next week, according to NBC New York.
Story by Jamal Osborne • Yesterday

looks like Candace Owens is back in hot water again after making some controversial comments about a SKIMS ad that featured a model in a wheelchair. In the final minutes of a recent episode of Owens’ podcast on the Daily Wire, she expressed her confusion and irritation with the ad starring a model in a wheelchair. “I don’t really understand how far we’re going to take this inclusivity thing I really don’t get it.” She said, “I’ve never really seen a bra and underwear advertisement with a girl in a wheel chair. Why did they do this? I don’t know and I don’t know why this needed to be done, but I’m just getting tired of this all inclusivity thing it all just seems ridiculous.”
Story by Brad Reed

Right-wing pundit Rich Lowry is not impressed with former President Donald Trump's efforts to brand anyone who doesn't slavishly carry out his bidding as a "RINO," or "Republican in name only." Writing in Politico, Lowry says that Trump has been frequently deploying the "RINO" pejorative against Republicans who refused to carry out his schemes to illegally stay in the White House after losing the 2020 presidential election.

However, Lowry notes that Trump's obsession with enforcing total loyalty to 2020 election falsehoods has significantly damaged the party, as Trump-backed election denying candidates including Kari Lake, Doug Mastriano, and Herschel Walker all crashed and burned in general elections. "The 2022 midterms proved that an obsession with the 2020 election is electoral poison, such that a true RINO scheming to destroy the party from within would want as many Republicans to share this fixation as possible," Lowry comments.
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan's unprecedented attack on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this week will "backfire" on the GOP, according to a Washington Post columnist who spoke with House Democrats. Chairman Jordan, who has no constitutional oversight authority over an elected county district attorney, demanded Bragg hand over documents and communications and testify before Congress about his criminal investigation into Donald Trump's hush money payoffs and business practices. Some believe an indictment could come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

"If Jim Jordan and MAGA Republicans attack the Manhattan DA's potential indictment of Trump, Democrats will use the proceedings to draw attention to coordination between House Republicans and Trump's legal team, Dems tell me," The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent said Wednesday via Twitter. "This will backfire on the GOP."

Sargent adds House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin told him: "This is an extreme move to use the resources of Congress to interfere with a criminal investigation at the state and local level." Raskin likened "GOP 'political culture' to 'authoritarian dictatorships.'"
Story by Queerty

The Florida state rep. who wrote the original ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill pleaded guilty yesterday to COVID-19 relief fraud. Joseph Harding, 35, a Republican, potentially faces up to 35 years in jail. Harding pleaded guilty at a federal court in Gainsville. The charges were wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements in connection with COVID-19 relief fraud.

Prosecutors announced Harding’s indictment last December. In a statement at the time, the Department of Justice said, “Harding fraudulently obtained and attempted to obtain more than $150,000 in funds from the SBA to which he was not entitled.” It says he applied for financial relief for businesses that had lain dormant. Harding immediately resigned from the House after the indictment. He took to Facebook to say he pleaded “not guilty” at an initial hearing.
Story by Queerty

If you’re eagerly awaiting news of Donald’s potential indictment and arrest for paying off Stormy Daniels back in 2016, you’re not alone. After his announcement of his own impending arrest over on Truth Social, folks online have started to get excited to see his former Twitter fingers gripping jail cell bars.

As enticing as the idea is, the reality is that an arrest is unlikely to occur today. If anything, his bombshell message was just meant to stir up protests in his name against his indictment. This wasn’t the most effective tactic in the world — nobody really turned out in his defense at Trump Tower yesterday — but he seems desperate enough to try anything.

Even with political analysts doubting his being taken in within the next few days, the internet is waiting with bated breath. “#TrumpArrest” is trending high over on Twitter, and the jokes are too funny to miss.
Story by Aaron Blake

Documents revealed in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News suggest that Fox News producer Abby Grossberg was invested in the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. In its defense, Fox has even cited Grossberg’s testimony as evidence that it wasn’t as reckless as Dominion claims. But in a striking turn for the increasingly embattled cable news network, Grossberg is criticizing Fox’s “coverage of the lies against Dominion” and saying her testimony was coerced.

In a federal lawsuit in New York, Grossberg claims Fox discriminated against her on the basis of her gender and that the network is home to rampant misogyny. But more relevant for Fox’s current predicament is what Grossberg says about Dominion’s lawsuit in both the New York filing and a defamation lawsuit brought in Delaware. “Quite simply, Fox’s legal team coerced, intimidated, and misinformed Ms. Grossberg as they ‘prepared’ her in connection with deposition testimony she gave in the pending defamation case brought by the company known as Dominion … ,” Grossberg’s attorneys say in the New York case.

Grossberg’s attorneys add in the Delaware case that the Fox lawyers “intentionally coerced and intimidated Ms. Grossberg into providing testimony that placed her reputation in a false light” and “did so intentionally to deflect blame and liability in the Dominion/Fox Lawsuit away from Fox News and male on-air hosts and executives.”
Opinion by Alex Henderson

One of the most influential Republicans of the 20th Century was U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, appointed by GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower. One landmark ruling after another was handed down by the Warren Court, from New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) to Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to Stanley v. Georgia (1969) to Brown v. the Board of Education (1954).

Another was Gideon v. Wainwright, a 1963 decision guaranteeing criminal defendants the right to legal counsel. Three years later, the protections of Gideon grew even stronger thanks to the Warren Court's 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona. The Miranda warning famously recited in countless police dramas includes elements of both Gideon v. Wainwright and Miranda v. Arizona, including, "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you." Far-right Justice Clarence Thomas, during his 32 years on the High Court, has made no secret of his disdain for the Warren Court. And that includes Gideon v. Wainwright.
Story by Brad Reed

CNN reports that an "explosive" new lawsuit filed by Fox News producer Abby Grossberg has thrown a wrench into its defense against a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. According to CNN, Grossberg alleges that she was coached by Fox News attorneys to give misleading testimony under oath in order to shift blame away from the network for airing multiple false claims about Dominion.

"Fox News Attorneys acted as agents and at the behest of Fox News to misleadingly coach, manipulate, and coerce Ms. Grossberg to deliver shaded and/or incomplete answers during her sworn deposition testimony, which answers were clearly to her reputational detriment but greatly benefitted Fox News," the lawsuit states.

The complaint also documents alleged misogynistic and anti-Semitic behavior by Fox News employees that Grossberg experienced as a producer for both Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and primetime Fox News star Tucker Carlson.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

At the end of her Monday night show, Rachel Maddow welcomed Georgia lawyer Michael Moore to address the way in which Republicans in his state have been willing to change the laws just to protect Donald Trump from being indicted. Fulton County has been at work for a year over those that attempted to overthrow the 2020 election in the state. While the grand jury operated for quite a while, only recently did Republicans figure out a way to act. The law hasn't been signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) yet, but the GOP legislators are already demanding that the Fulton County D.A. be fired.

"I really think they picked a boxing match with a ghost," said Moore. "There is not much that can be said about special grand jury reports. Remember, we don't use special grand juries very often in this state. We have to use criminal garages. The special grand jury allowed the district attorney to use subpoena power to bring reluctant witnesses in to talk to them to find out what was going on. But she didn't have to do it. And so, essentially, the motion today says, well, let's make her throw that report in the trash can. She can throw it in the trash can. She is not bound by it. It is no more a recommendation any more than it was written on a sticky note and stuck on her office door. She doesn't have to do anything that the special grand jury recommended. In fact, she has complete discretion to look at the facts, to look at the law, to make decisions about which individuals she may want to bring charges against. And on what offenses." He said that there would be a lot more coming out of the case, including more pre-trial motions.
Stephen Collinson
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

CNN — Donald Trump’s Republican allies in the House are doing what the former president taught them to do – use government power to try to keep his legal threats at bay. After Trump warned he could be arrested, his allies have been using their new House majority to demand Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s testimony and seek to thwart his investigation relating to an alleged hush money payment to an adult film star before the 2016 election. It looks like an extraordinary attempt to influence an open grand jury investigation.

In fact, the House GOP appears to be using the exact same tactic they accuse the Biden administration, Bragg and any other investigators on Trump’s trail of employing – weaponizing the powers of government to advance a partisan political end. Yet there are also sufficient doubts about a possible prosecution assembled by Bragg – and the unusual nature of potential charges relating to business and electoral law violations – to fuel questions from nonpartisan legal experts about the case perhaps not living up to its billing. This is an especially fateful issue given the gravity of any potential case against a former president.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Even before any charges have been released against former President Donald Trump, as is widely expected to happen by experts, House Republicans are turning their guns on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and other GOP chairs demanding he come before Congress to testify on his investigation.

Former Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe tore into this effort, agreeing with former attorney and Congressman Dan Goldman, who tweeted, "Defending Trump is not a legitimate legislative purpose for Congress to investigate a state district attorney. Congress has no jurisdiction to investigate the Manhattan DA, which receives no federal funding nor has any other federal nexus." "For Congress to harass a local prosecutor who is just enforcing state criminal laws violates core principles of federalism and state sovereignty in violation of the Tenth Amendment," he wrote.
Story by Lee Moran

In one swift action, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Monday showed exactly what he thought of a letter co-authored by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that condemned the expected indictment of former President Donald Trump. O’Donnell ripped it up.

“If Nancy Pelosi had gotten this letter … this is what she would do with it,” O’Donnell said, before tearing it live on air. “That would get the Pelosi rip faster than any paper she has handled since the Trump State of the Union address.”

In the letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the GOP chairs of the House Judiciary (Jordan), Oversight (Kentucky Rep. James Comer) and Administration (Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil) committees slammed the investigation of Trump over a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, calling it politically motivated.
Story by Milla • Yesterday

Ron DeSantis’ “Stop-Woke” apparently includes rewriting history, and one of the most famous Black women in modern America, Rosa Parks. The Governor of Florida ensured to remove any reference to race, The New York Times reports. The publication gave an example of how the well-known story went from “The law said African Americans had to give up their seats on the bus if a white person wanted to sit down” to “She was told to move to a different seat.” This lesson from the fourth grade now does not mention race, but it simply states it was illegal for “men of certain groups” to be unemployed and for “certain groups of people” to do jury duty.
Story by Gideon Rubin • Yesterday

Aformer Republican political operative on Monday slammed three House GOP leaders over plans to investigate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in connection with the prosecution of former President Donald Trump. Appearing on "The ReidOut with Joy Reid" on MSNBC Monday evening, Kurt Bardella said the case noq before a Manhattan grand jury is not within the congressional oversight committee’s purview. He described the apparent efforts to interfere with the probe as a “flagrant abuse of power.”

Bardella’s comments followed a letter jointly sent by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Chairman James Comer and House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil requesting testimony from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and calling his prosecution of the former president an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.” “I know how investigations are supposed to work. I know what congressional oversight is supposed to look like. This is not that,” Bardella said.
The bill passed with slim majorities in each chamber, making it unlikely Congress will override the veto.
By Zoë Richards

President Joe Biden on Monday issued his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bipartisan measure that would nullify a new administration rule for retirement plans. "I just signed this veto because the legislation passed by the Congress would put at risk the retirement savings of individuals across the country," Biden said in a video posted on his Twitter account. "They couldn't take into consideration investments that would be impacted by climate, impacted by overpaying executives and that's why I decided to veto it."

The veto comes after the Senate voted 50-46 March 1 to pass a resolution blocking a Labor Department rule allowing for certain retirement plans to weigh environmental, social and corporate governance factors when selecting investments, instead of making decisions based solely on the best rate of return. In the Senate vote, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana joined Republicans to pass the measure. The House passed it Feb. 28 in a 216-204 vote, with Rep. Jared Golden of Maine bucking his party to vote with Republicans. A two-thirds majority is needed in each chamber to override a veto.
Story by Daniel Barnes and Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday, as a judge ordered jurors to continue deliberating the most serious counts against two additional defendants.

Sandra Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury found Michael Greene, another member of the Oath Keepers, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, but was still debating whether he was guilty of aiding or abetting the obstruction of an official proceeding. Bennie Parker was found not guilty of aiding or abetting, but the jury was still deliberating the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding charge.

All six members of the far-right group were found guilty of the charge of entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Both Parker and Greene may only ultimately be convicted of that charge.
Opinion by Amanda Marcotte

Gov. Ron DeSantis made a name for himself by bragging that his state of Florida is where "woke goes to die." He, like most Republicans, sprints away from anyone asking him what exactly he means by the word "woke." Still, the past year in Florida, where educators have been crushed under various "anti-woke" laws signed by DeSantis, has made the parameters quite clear: "Woke" is acknowledging that racism is a thing that ever happened and/or accepting that LGBTQ people exist. DeSantis' vision for Florida is very much Disney in its most reactionary, "Song of the South" era. But probably with fewer kids reading since books are categorically viewed with suspicion in DeSantis' "anti-woke" paradise.

Despite DeSantis' Florida-centric language when he talks about schools, however, it's long been clear that the ambitious plans to decimate education extend past the Sunshine State's borders and across the U.S. He's not a lone figure who just happens to have a crippling obsession with keeping kids from reading. DeSantis is really just the most prominent figure in what is a national GOP campaign to destroy the educational system, remaking it into a propaganda system for various right-wing hobbyhorses, no matter how disassociated from reality they may be. The GOP war on education dramatically expanded last week in when the Republican-controlled state government in Texas wrested control of the House Independent School District from local leaders.
Story by Ken Meyer

Former Vice President Mike Pence faced an intense interview from ABC News’s Jon Karl — during which he was forced to directly respond to Donald Trump defending his supporters who wanted to hunt him down and execute him. Pence spoke with Karl amid Trump’s calls for his supporters to protest the possibility that the former president will be indicted over the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal. In one part of the conversation, Karl asked Pence about Trump attempting to blame him for the siege Trump’s supporters launched on the U.S. Capitol.
Story by hgetahun@insider.com (Hannah Getahun)

A former GOP Texas politician came forward after four decades to say he witnessed his mentor, former Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr., meeting with Middle Eastern leaders to deliver a message: Don't let the Iranian hostages free until after the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Ben Barnes, speaking with The New York Times, said he accompanied Connally on a 1980 trip through six countries in the Middle East — Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel — and watched as his mentor asked various leaders to relay the message to Iran. Barnes told the Times that Connally, who lost the Republican nomination to Reagan that year, was hoping to help him win in order to secure a position with the administration.
Story by Tommy Christopher

New York Times correspondent, best-selling author, and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman called out Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy for “threatening” investigations after ex-President Donald Trump ranted about being ‘ARRESTED ON TUESDAY.”

Trump touched off a firestorm Saturday morning with a pair of all-caps social media posts that culminated in a call to unrest.  In his posts Trump urged supporters to ‘TAKE OUR NATION BACK!’ in an early-morning all-caps rant over reports he claims say he ” WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

Trump appeared to be reacting to reports that various law enforcement agencies are meeting next week with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to prepare for a possible indictment and arrest of Trump in  Bragg’s case against Trump over hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. McCarthy seemed to respond by posting a message, hours later, vowing investigations of prosecutors probing Trump, writing:
Story by Tom Boggioni

Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday moments just moments after Donald Trump claimed he is going to be arrested on Tuesday, former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner claimed the former president'sall-caps post on Truth Social that seems to encourage violence will become evidence in future indictments. Speaking with host Katie Phang, Kirschner said this the two posts will come back to haunt him -- and the former president knows what he is doing by inciting his fans.

"I would slap a government exhibits sticker on this post and I would introduce it as his criminal trial," Kirschner explained. "And this is a dark moment in our nation's history and I'm glad you got to break the news, Katie." "Because what we have just seen is basically, 'come to D.C. on January 6th. Will be wild 2.0.' And I am sorry to say that for months I have been saying on air and online, that the moment Donald Trump knows he's been indicted, his first post will be come to Manhattan or come to Georgia for my arraignment -- will be wild."
Story by insider@insider.com (John L. Dorman)

A judge sentenced an Air Force veteran — who entered the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol dressed in body armor and carrying zip-tie handcuffs — to two years in prison on Friday. Larry R. Brock, a 55-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, joined other rioters on the Senate floor only minutes after security rushed then-Vice President Mike Pence out of the chamber and a mob, upset over then-President Donald Trump's 2020 loss to now-President Joe Biden, had breached the building.

A court found Brock, who lives in Galveston, Texas, guilty on six charges in November, including the obstruction of an official proceeding, which is a felony. In his explanation of the sentence, US District Judge John Bates described Brock's behavior in harsh terms. "It's really pretty astounding coming from a former high-ranked military officer. It's astounding and atrocious," the judge said.

The judge lowered the federal sentencing range from 57 to 71 months to 24 to 30 months given the dynamics of this particular case, including Brock's military service and the lack of a prior criminal record. But the judge said he also took into account the extreme rhetoric found on Brock's Facebook posts, which were read aloud in court, when determining the sentence.
Story by Tom Boggioni

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) jumped into the fray on Saturday morning after Donald Trump made a claim on Truth Social that he will be arrested on Tuesday. Early Saturday, the leader of the House Republicans stated on Twitter that he wants all GOP chairs of relevant House committees to "immediately" look into whether federal funds are being used to fund investigations into the former president. On Truth Social Saturday morning, Trump set off a firestorm by claiming he will be arrested in three days, while also calling on his followers to take to the streets to protest.

Trump wrote, in part: "NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"
Story by Tom Boggioni

Reacting to a report that a Fulton County grand jury heard a recording of Donald Trump speaking with Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and asking him to convene a special session of the legislature to the 2020 presidential election results, CNN's Eli Honig claimed the former president's legal team will be hard-pressed to dismiss Trump's call to Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger as a one-off venting of frustration.

Speaking with hosts Jim Sciuto and Erica Hill, the former prosecutor said the call -- a third one from Trump --is evidence of a "pattern" of criminality. With host Sciutto mentioning there are now three Trump phone calls the grand jury has heard, he asked, "How impactful are recordings like this and, based on what the president said to those individuals, do they provide, in your view, the ability to indict?"

"First of all, there is no evidence better than recordings, "Honeig replied,"Because that is the defendant or subject's own voice they cannot dispute. And there is something to showing a jury, letting a jury to hear it and judge it by themselves."
Story by Joshua Wilburn

Former president Donald Trump is pushing back on the notion that Russia is the biggest threat to the United States. The New York businessman turned Republican politician believes that the American people could do more harm than any foreign enemy.

Trump appeared in a recent three-minute video where he reiterated his ambition to become President yet again. In it, he mentioned how he believed that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine needs to end “immediately” otherwise it could lead to “World War 3.” Who does he believe are standing in the way of ending the conflict? America, along with the rest of the west.

“The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia,” Trump claims. “It’s probably more than anything else ourselves and some of the horrible, USA-hating people that represent us.” The former president didn’t specify anyone by name, but instead referred to vague groups and buzzwords such as the “entire globalist neocon establishment.”
Story by Stephen Silver

Trump’s election claims were undercut by Trump-commissioned report: The former president, who is running again in 2024, commissioned a major study of the 2020 election. That study contradicted virtually every 2020 claim by Trump.

More Trump Self-Created Drama
Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him have been debunked over the last two-and-a-half years. Now, we have learned that those claims were debunked another time- in a report commissioned by Trump’s own presidential campaign in early 2021. Trump paid a group called the Berkeley Research Group for the “Project 2020” report, for $600,000 to Trump’s 2020 campaign.

Prosecutors investigating the January 6 attack have the report, following subpoenas to “some people involved in its crafting,” the Washington Post said. Perhaps because it didn’t uphold Trump’s claims, the report was never made public.
Story by Tommy Christopher

Justice Department investigators have obtained a Trump campaign-commissioned report that debunked voter fraud claims days before then-President Donald Trump used those claims to pressure officials to help him overturn the 2020 election. Trump is currently in the crosshairs of several potentially damaging legal cases: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump over hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, as well as the Special Counsel Jack Smith-led Justice Department probes into Trump’s mishandling of classified information under the Espionage Act and his conduct surrounding the January 6 insurrection, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ grand jury investigation of Donald Trump’s effort to overturn election results in Georgia.
Republicans are trying to deny the history of black people by white washing history.

Story by Charisma Madarang

Studies Weekly, whose curriculum reaches 45,000 schools across the country, went to extreme lengths to cater to Ron DeSantis’ hellish vision of Florida. In an effort to protect its sales, the publisher removed references to race, including the history of Rosa Parks, from its social studies material, the New York Times reports.

The crude update follows a push by the Florida governor to place a widespread ban on the teaching of topics deemed related to Critical Race Theory (CRT), and the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Although a judge recently denied a request from Florida’s government to block an injunction against DeSantis’ “Stop-Woke” act in the state’s public colleges, DeSantis’ administration rejected dozens of math books—claiming some contained CRT. In January, Florida blocked the College Board from testing a pilot Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS).
Story by Michael Luciano

Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to former President Donald Trump said Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner raked in billions of dollars while serving in the administration. Conway sparred with fellow Fox News contributor Juan Williams on Thursday’s edition of The Story.

Earlier in the day, the House Oversight Committee released a memo stating that relatives of President Joe Biden received $1.3 million between 2015 and 2017 from an associate with ties to China when Biden was vice president and shortly after. Biden’s son, daughter-in-law, brother, and an unidentified member of the family received payments.

“It is unclear what services were provided to obtain this exorbitant amount of money,” said Chairman James Comer (R-KY). On The Story, Martha MacCallum recalled the investigations into Trump and whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to get elected.

“There were massive investigations, millions of dollars spent, and always the question, you know, what are they getting in return?” MacCallum said. “So, do you have the same question for the Biden family when you look at this money transaction? What was China getting in return? Is that something Americans must know?” Williams said there is no evidence Biden himself received any money or that there was anything nefarious going on.
Story by A Dime Saved

Recently, Trump went on a rant on Truth Social, implying that the Constitution should be terminated. Republicans shot down the idea, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have plans of their own. Senior Republicans are reportedly working hard to rewrite the Constitution and call a constitutional convention.

Channeling the Founding Fathers
Insider published a report earlier this year revealing the lengths that Republicans are going to attempt to invoke Article V of the Constitution, which would lead to a convention of the state delegates, whose only real purpose was writing the Constitution in the first place.

In 2022, Nebraska, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Wisconsin joined with 15 other states in formally calling for a constitutional convention. Article V states that there needs to be approval from 34 states in order for the convention to successfully be formed.

“Show up at the town hall meeting. You don’t win this in one great land battle, it is a bunch of skirmishes,” former Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum said at a meeting. Santorum is closely connected to Convention of States, which was founded by Mark Meckler.
Story by Igor Derysh

AFulton County grand jury heard a previously unreported recording of former President Donald Trump pressuring a top Georgia Republican to help overturn his election loss in the state, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The special grand jury investigated Trump's efforts to overturn his election in the state after District Attorney Fani Willis launched a probe into the former president's infamous phone call pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to reverse his loss. But five grand jurors who spoke with AJC revealed that investigators also have an audio recording of Trump pressuring then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston to push for a special session to reverse President Joe Biden's win.

Ralston proved to be an "amazing politician" on the call, a juror told AJC. The speaker "basically cut the president off. He said, 'I will do everything in my power that I think is appropriate.' … He just basically took the wind out of the sails," the juror said. "'Well, thank you,' you know, is all the president could say."
Story by David Mack

Acommittee of Florida’s House voted on Tuesday to recommend moving forward with a controversial bill reforming defamation law that First Amendment advocates decried to the legislators as representing “a death knell for American traditions of free speech.” At a hearing at the Capitol in Tallahassee, the Civil Justice Subcommittee voted in favor of moving ahead with HB 991 despite fears that it could chill press freedoms and public debate. All 13 Republicans and one Democrat on the committee voted to advance the bill, while the four other Democrat members voted against it.

The bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Alex Andrade, told the committee that it would not change the legal elements of defamation, which require that a person falsely assert a fact — and not a mere opinion — that then causes harm to another person’s reputation. “As one of my favorite people to listen to, Ben Shapiro, always says, ‘Facts don't care about your feelings,’” Andrade told the committee. “You're entitled to your statements of opinion. You're entitled to your personal subjective viewpoints. This bill doesn't change that.”
Story by Rachel Sharp

One day in October, Rasheem Carter sent a chilling final text message to his mother. The Black 25-year-old told her he was being chased by a group of white men in pickup trucks while they hurled racist abuse at him. She never heard from him again. One month later, Carter’s remains were discovered in a wooded area – his head completely severed from his body, according to the family. So why are Mississippi authorities saying that there are “no signs” of foul play? Here’s what we know so far about the case:

Disappearance
It was 1 October when Carter sent an ominous text message to his mother. Carter, a welder who lived in Fayette, Mississippi, had gotten a short-term job as a contractor around 100 miles away in Taylorsville. His mother Tiffany Carter said that he was saving money to try to get his seafood restaurant back up and running after it was shuttered during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Story by Lee Moran

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday mocked the “comically preposterous” claim being pushed on the right that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was down to its “wokeness.” “Folks, we’ve got an outbreak of woke banks,” the “All In” anchor joked. Hayes aired a montage of conservative figures — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Fox News personalities Tucker Carlson and Jesse Watters — trying to spin the blame on SVB’s downfall on President Joe Biden, liberals and diversity policies.
Exclusive: New York prosecutors expanded criminal inquiry of company last year and examined acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties
Hugo Lowell in New York

Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The company – Trump Media, which owns Trump’s Truth Social platform – initially came under criminal investigation over its preparations for a potential merger with a blank check company called Digital World (DWAC) that was also the subject of an earlier probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Towards the end of last year, federal prosecutors started examining two loans totaling $8m wired to Trump Media, through the Caribbean, from two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the sources said.

Before hosting a Fox News show, Tucker Carlson warned against "conspiracy theories.” Now, Mr. Carlson is involved in a case alleging lies, where some of the most damning evidence comes from Fox hosts including Carlson. MSNBC’s Ari Melber reports on how Carlson’s history is boomeranging in this case and why it exposes a wider crisis in conservative media.
Story by Sky Palma

According to a report from CNN, red states like Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Missouri, and others are launching a new front in their quest to seize authority over local prosecutors and policing policies. “If left unchecked, local jurisdictions in states with conservative legislatures whose political majority does not match their own may find themselves subject to commandeering on an unprecedented scale,” the Legal Defense Fund's Janai Nelson tells CNN.

Red states want to override the decisions of blue cities on issues such as minimum wage, environmental regulations, mask mandates, and criminal justice reform. Marissa Roy of the Local Solutions Support Center says a lot of the criminal justice reform preemption "is in direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement."

"Many of the red state moves to preempt local district attorneys have targeted the so-called 'progressive prosecutors' elected in many large cities over recent years," writes CNN. "But there is also an unmistakable racial dimension to these confrontations: In many instances, state-level Republicans elected primarily with the support of White, non-urban voters are looking to seize power from, or remove from office, Black or Hispanic local officials elected by largely non-White urban and suburban voters."
Story by Alex Henderson

During former President Donald Trump's four years in the White House, most Republicans didn't have a lot to say about the United States' federal deficit. But after President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicted that the GOP would magically rediscover fiscal conservatism. Sure enough, many Republicans have attacked Biden as a tax-and-spend Democrat, overlooking the effect that the GOP-sponsored Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 — a major tax cut for the wealthy and large corporations — had on the federal deficit.

Critics of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act have argued that while it dramatically reduced corporate taxes and made the rich richer, it didn't help the middle class — and that in some states, it became, in effect, a tax hike for the middle class by taking away various deductions that middle class taxpayers had been relying on.

One of Biden's Republican critics has been Grover Norquist, the 66-year-old founder of Americans for Tax Reform. Journalist Michael Tomasky examines Norquist's influence on GOP tax policy in an article published by The New Republic on March 13, emphasizing that he has been a key contributor to higher federal deficits in the U.S.
Opinion by Chauncey DeVega

America is not mired in a culture war. In reality, today's Republican Party and larger "conservative" movement are waging a fascist war against multiracial pluralist democracy and human freedom. Ultimately, to not understand how the so-called culture war is actually a fascist war against American democracy is to almost ensure being rolled over by those evil forces.

Many political observers point to Pat Buchanan's infamous 1992 speech at the GOP national convention as the beginning of the so-called culture war in America. However, the roots of this fascist and authoritarian campaign are much older: Jim and Jane Crow and white-on-black chattel slavery, genocide against First Nations peoples and white settler colonialism are America's native forms of fascism. When located in the proper historical context, neofascism and the Age of Trump are properly understood as being but the most current manifestation of much older birth defects in American democracy and society.

The fascist project is fundamentally a cultural project. In a very important recent essay in the Guardian, Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley highlights how the Republican fascist thought crime laws in Florida and other parts of the country targeting the teaching of African-American history (and the country's real history more generally) are examples of a much larger Orwellian project:
Story by Nicole Silverio

Axios journalist Ben Montgomery sent an angry email responding to the Florida Department of Education’s press release on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education. Montgomery received the press release from Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, which reviewed details from the governor’s roundtable on the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scam in Higher Education.” Alex Lanfranconi, the education department’s communications director, posted a screenshot of Montgomery’s emailed response. “This is propaganda, not a press release,” Montgomery wrote.
Story by Arthur Delaney, Igor Bobic

In 2018, Congress passed bipartisan legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump weakening regulations on mid-sized financial institutions like Silicon Valley Bank, whose collapse last week set off fears of another 2008-like financial crisis. The measure was supported by 33 House Democrats and 17 Democratic senators, delivering Trump and the banking industry a key bipartisan victory.

But lawmakers had been explicitly told that the bill increased the risk of a financial crisis because it relaxed rules designed to strengthen banks in case of an unexpected shock — like the run on deposits last week that resulted in Silicon Valley Bank’s failure.

The Congressional Budget Office, in its estimate of how much the legislation might cost the government, said the bill would slightly increase the risk that a mid-sized regional institution would fail, potentially exposing the government to much higher costs.

The legislation would exclude some bank assets from stricter regulation, the CBO explained to lawmakers, so passing it “would thus increase the likelihood that a large financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion would fail.” Silicon Valley Bank said it had $212 billion in assets at the close of 2022.
Story by Brandon Gage

The exposure of damning communications between Fox News host Tucker Carlson, producers, corporate bigwigs, other anchors, and staffers at the network regarding their true feelings toward ex-President Donald Trump and his lies about the 2020 election has exposed a vast collaboration to dupe Fox's audience into believing what its employees knew to be utter rubbish. On Monday's edition of Out Front, CNN host Erin Burnett and correspondent Oliver Darcy discussed what the latest batch of private discussions divulges about Fox and its coverage of Trump.

"Even more Fox News texts coming to light from that Dominion defamation lawsuit challenging the right-wing channel for pushings lies that Dominion claims were 'good for Fox's business.' So this time it's an exchange between a Fox executive and a former producer for one of its biggest stars, Tucker Carlson. So let's bring in CNN's senior media reporter Oliver Darcy. So, Oliver, you have found a fascinating exchange and a very illuminating exchange. What does it reveal?" Burnett asked Darcy.
Story by Travis Gettys

MSNBC's Donny Deutsch believes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won't look as appealing to voters as some Republicans think. The Florida Republican is widely seen as Donald Trump's strongest challenger for the GOP nomination, but the "Morning Joe" contributor said his personality flaws are just too glaring to win over voters outside the conservative base.

"What a joyless character Ron DeSantis is, what a dour, sour, nasty, mean and, if you go back in history through every election, usually ... the candidate you want to have a beer with versus the other one is the one who wins," Deutsch said. "The one you want to have a cup of coffee, the one you want to invite to your living room -- this is a very obnoxious, nasty, as you used the word, cruel man."
Thousands of pages of documents in a recent lawsuit show that Fox News' top executives sometimes were actively involved in politics rather than simply reporting or offering opinions on it
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and DAVID BAUDER Associated Press

NEW YORK -- In May 2018, the nation's top Republicans needed help. So they called on the founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were trying to stop West Virginia Republicans from nominating Don Blankenship, who had been convicted of violating mine safety standards during a lethal accident in one of his coal mines, to challenge the state's incumbent senator, Democrat Joe Manchin.

“Both Trump and McConnell are appealing for help to beat unelectable former mine owner who served time,” Murdoch wrote to executives at Fox News, according to court records released this week. “Anything during day helpful, but Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) dumping on him hard might save the day.”

Murdoch's prodding, revealed in court documents that are part of a defamation lawsuit by a voting systems company, is one example showing how Fox became actively involved in politics instead of simply reporting or offering opinions about it. The revelations pose a challenge to the credibility of the most watched cable news network in the U.S. at the outset of a new election season in which Trump is again a leading player, having declared his third run for the White House.
By Jacob Rosen, Fin Gómez, Mary Hager

In some of his harshest language to date, former Vice President Mike Pence Saturday night condemned former President Donald Trump's continued election denialism, calling Trump's actions "wrong." "History will hold Donald Trump accountable," Pence said, addressing an audience of politicians and journalists at the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, D.C.

"President Trump was wrong," Pence said about Trump's baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election. "I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions." Pence also criticized right-wing media personalities who have sought to sanitize the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

"It was not, as some would have you believe, tourists visiting the Capitol," Pence said. "Tourists don't injure 140 police officers by sightseeing. Tourists don't break down doors to get to the speaker of the House." "The American people have a right to know what took place at the Capitol on January 6th, and I expect members of the fourth estate to continue to do their job," Pence added.
Opinion by Rex Huppke, USA TODAY

It has been a bad couple of weeks for the fabulists at Fox News. Text messages made public as part of a lawsuit against the network have shown the disregard many popular hosts have for their audience as well as the ease with which they say things they don’t believe are true.

It’s clear from court filings in the Dominion Voting Systems $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox news that the network cares only about making money, and knows its money comes from telling viewers exactly what they want to hear. Supporting former President Donald Trump and parroting his lies about the 2020 election being rigged was good for the bottom line, so the network and hosts like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson responded in kind.
It is not just Fox news right wing medai is fake news

Opinion by Leonard Pitts Jr., Tribune Content Agency

From its creation by Rupert Murdoch in 1996, Fox News has always been considered an outsider. Late-night comics mocked its initial slogan “Fair and Balanced” as “Neither.” But most people were willing to accept Fox for what it was: a right-wing television network, the conservatives’ answer to left-leaning MSNBC, with CNN somewhere in the middle.

In fact, in 2009, when the Obama administration announced they were going to “treat them the way we would treat an opponent” and deny Fox News the same access other news outlets enjoyed, members of the White House press corps, myself included, protested. Fox might lean right, we argued, but they were still fellow journalists reporting the news, and deserved the same access enjoyed by CBS, ABC, CNN and other networks.

But that was then, and this is now. Over the years, Fox devolved into ever more of a right-wing voicebox, in both commentary and news gathering, until, during the Trump years, they became nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee.

Yet now we know it’s even worse than we thought. Documents released in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox show that Fox News was not only repeatedly broadcasting Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” about actually winning the 2020 election, they were also trumpeting their own “Big Lie” about rigged voting machines.
Story by jshamsian@insider.com (Jacob Shamsian)

Jeffrey Epstein said in an unaired interview that he distanced himself from former President Donald Trump after realizing Trump was "a crook," according to his brother, Mark Epstein. Mark Epstein told Insider he viewed a clip of the interview, conducted by Trump's former White House advisor Steve Bannon, after his brother forwarded it to him in the spring of 2019. At the time, Bannon was conducting filmed interviews with the now-dead pedophile financier. Bannon sent Jeffrey Epstein a Dropbox link to a clip, which he forwarded to his brother. The link is no longer active, according to Mark.

"Jeffrey showed me the link to one of these interviews," Mark Epstein said. "And in that interview, Jeffrey said he stopped hanging out with Trump when he realized Trump was a crook." Insider has not been able to independently view the video. Bannon could not be reached for comment. Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges and died in jail several weeks later while awaiting trial. A compensation fund formed after his death concluded he sexually abused at least 136 people overall.
Story by Mary Papenfuss

Anderson Cooper slammed Donald Trump's former senior campaign legal adviser Colorado attorney Jenna Ellis on Friday for completely contradicting within hours her own admission that she had lied when she claimed the 2020 election was rigged. The segment on his CNN program "360" was entitled: "When Liars Lie About Lying." Cooper played a clip of a disgusted Ellis baselessly insisting the vote was rigged — the kind of statement she completely disavowed this week — or not.

Ellis, who had helped Trump challenge election results, was censured on Wednesday by a Colorado judge after she admitted under oath in state bar disciplinary proceedings that she had violated multiple professional rules when she misrepresented facts about the election. A watchdog tallied 10 cases of "misrepresentation." In an agreement with legal authorities, Ellis reportedly accepted that she had “through her conduct, undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public.”

Ellis even signed a legal acknowledgment that “she made a number of public statements about the November 2020 presidential election that were false” and did so with a “reckless state of mind” and with “a selfish motive,” according to documents released by Colorado’s Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.
Story by Josh Dickey

Tucker Carlson this week said emphatically that "everyone should have access" to the more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 security footage shared with his Fox News show, then spoke at length about how - though he is "the easiest person to reach" - no "working journalist" has bothered to ask for a look. Well, TheWrap has been trying for four full business days. Neither have we seen the footage, nor has anyone penned so much as a polite "We'll get back to you." Full crickets.

"I personally think everyone should have access to [the tapes]," Carlson chirped Thursday on "The Glenn Beck Program," telling the namesake host: "I'll put you in touch with my producer who's been dealing with the speaker's office." Good luck with that, Glenn Beck. TheWrap sent a formal Freedom of Information Act request to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California, on Tuesday. It has, as of Friday, been left unanswered.
Kara Scannell Kristen Holmes
By Kara Scannell, Kristen Holmes and Jack Forrest, CNN

CNN — Manhattan prosecutors have invited former President Donald Trump to appear before the grand jury investigating his alleged role in a hush money payment scheme and cover-up, a person familiar with the matter said, indicating a decision on charging Trump may come soon. Potential defendants in New York are required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury weighing charges. It is unclear if Trump would appear.

The New York Times first reported the development. Trump would be the first former president ever indicted and also the first major presidential candidate under indictment seeking office. He has said he “wouldn’t even think about leaving” the race if charged. Trump is facing criminal inquiries related to his activities before, during and after his presidency.

In addition to the New York City investigation, Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors have been probing the effort by Trump and his allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, and a Justice Department special counsel is investigating Trump’s role in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and Trump’s handling of classified material after he left office.
Story by Brandon Gage

Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz added significant credence to critiques of Fox News that the network exists to indulge its audience's confirmation biases and personal beliefs rather than inform. Gertz shared his frank assessment with The Bulwark Editor-in-Chief Charlie Sykes on Wednesday's edition of the conservative publication's podcast during a discussion regarding Fox hosts' roles in peddling former President Donald Trump's bogus conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

"I wanted to just drill down a little bit on this. Why is this happening? And I have several different layers to this question. Why is Fox News doing this? Now when they are faced with a billion-dollar-plus lawsuit for their lies about the election. The week after we had this incredible embarrassment of riches from the document dumped showing the text messages and the emails, the hypocrisy, the duplicity, the dishonesty. Why is Tucker Carlson doubling down on this? And why has Fox News letting him?" Sykes wondered.
Story by Alex Henderson

In Ohio, two well-known Republicans — Larry Householder, former speaker for the Ohio House of Representatives, and ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges — have been facing federal corruption charges in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme. And on Thursday, March 9, a jury in Cincinnati found both of them guilty.

According to CBS News, the jury found Householder and Borges "guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering, after about 9.5 half hours of deliberations over two days."

After the verdict was handed down, Kenneth Parker — a federal prosecutor in the case — told reporters, "(Larry) Householder sold the Statehouse, and thus, he ultimately betrayed the people of the great state of Ohio he was elected to serve…. Through its verdict today, the jury reaffirmed that the illegal acts committed by both men will not be tolerated and that they should be held accountable."
Story by Associated Press

ASSOCIATED PRESS | NEW YORK — In May 2018, the nation’s top Republicans needed help. So they called on the founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch. President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were trying to stop West Virginia Republicans from nominating Don Blankenship, who had been convicted of violating mine safety standards during a lethal accident in one of his coal mines, to challenge the state’s incumbent senator, Democrat Joe Manchin.

“Both Trump and McConnell are appealing for help to beat unelectable former mine owner who served time,” Murdoch wrote to executives at Fox News, according to court records released this week. “Anything during day helpful, but Sean (Hannity) and Laura (Ingraham) dumping on him hard might save the day.”

Murdoch’s prodding, revealed in court documents that are part of a defamation lawsuit by a voting systems company, is one example showing how Fox became actively involved in politics instead of simply reporting or offering opinions about it. The revelations pose a challenge to the credibility of the most watched cable news network in the U.S. at the outset of a new election season in which Trump is again a leading player, having declared his third run for the White House.
Story by Claire Conway

Donald Trump knew he would face obstacles in his campaign for president in 2024, but now even his ability to run is being challenged. Campaign group MoveOn created a petition in November that calls for government officials to disqualify Trump from the 2024 presidential election on the grounds of violating the Constitution.

Violating the Fourteenth Amendment
Within two weeks of its creation, the petition gained 50,000 signatures, and as of Monday, more than 125,000 people have signed. MoveOn is hoping to garner 200,000 signatures. The petition alleges that Trump’s actions during and after the Capitol riot on January 6th violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

The petition references Article Three, which says that any person who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking a congressional oath should be barred from running for office. People who signed the petition were given the option to share their reason for doing so in the comments section of the descriptions page.

Petition signer Jeanue S. said, “A peaceful demonstration is one thing. Destroying the capital and looking for people to harm plus destroying their offices is quite another. They should be prevented from running for any government position.”
Story by David Moye

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) called out the hypocrisy of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) during a Judiciary subcommittee meeting Thursday. Earlier this week, Jordan, who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a series of subpoenas as part of an ongoing investigation into what the GOP contends is the mistreatment of parents who protested “woke” school board policies. He also issued three subpoenas for testimony connected to the Department of Homeland Security’s now-disbanded Disinformation Governance Board.

While discussing subpoena compliance in the Subcommittee on Responsiveness and Accountability To Oversight meeting, Swalwell noted to subcommittee Chair Ben Cline (R-Va.) that he found Jordan’s views of subpoenas “quite rich,” considering the Ohio Republican seems to take the “rules for thee, not for me” approach. “I think that it is quite rich that we are talking about subpoena compliance under a chairman of the full committee who was absolutely out of subpoena compliance in the last Congress,” Swalwell said, noting that Jordan refused to cooperate with subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee.
Opinion by Hayes Brown

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has a lot on his plate. His job as chair of the Judiciary Committee positions him atop one of the primary forums for sparring with the Biden administration. But his side hustle chairing a subcommittee focused on the “weaponization of the federal government” is giving him all kinds of grief lately.

The goal of the subcommittee is to deliver on one of the biggest promises Republicans made during last year’s elections: producing proof that conservatives are victims of a vast federal plot to suppress their freedoms. Unfortunately for Jordan, everything about this farce is designed to work against him. It’s only a matter of time before the whole thing implodes — with Jordan caught squarely in the fallout.

Let’s take a look at the several ways that Jordan and the committee are poised to fail. First, there’s how much he and other members of the pro-Trump wing have invested in the grievances and conspiracy-mongering that animates the GOP base these days. Many of these tales of federal malfeasance follow a simple formula. A legitimate investigation or policy (such as the investigations into former President Donald Trump or Justice Department concerns about threats toward teachers and school board members) is recycled and spun in conservative media into another strand in the left-wing’s web of oppression.
Fox News is grooming Americans

Story by Areeba Shah

Dominion Voting Systems on Wednesday asked a judge to issue a ruling in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News before next month's scheduled trial after submitting evidence showing that Fox hosts and executives knew the TrumpWorld election lies they aired were false. Dominion asked the judge to decide the case in its favor, arguing that Fox News had "produced no evidence – none, zero – supporting those lies."

"This concession should come as no surprise. Discovery into Fox has proven that from the top of the organization to the bottom, Fox always knew the absurdity of the Dominion 'stolen election' story," Dominion said in the filing. "Despite having conceded it was all a lie, and despite internal documents proving they knew it was a lie all along, Fox still will not retract the lies and tell its audience the truth," the company's lawyers added.

Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged in his deposition that some hosts "endorsed" false claims. Internal messages also showed that top hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, derided the stolen election claims in private text messages but continued to air them in an effort to keep viewers from turning their attention to competing networks.

Prosecutors have announced new charges of unlawful conduct against 11 current or former officers in the troubled police department in East Cleveland, one of Ohio's poorest cities.
Republicans attack BLM, CRT, the woke and LGBT but defend white supremacy and white hate groups.

Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

All 26 Republicans on the powerful House Oversight Committee have refused to sign a simple, two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy. "We, Members of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, together denounce white nationalism and white supremacy in all its forms, including the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory. These hateful and dangerous ideologies have no place in the work of the United States Congress or our Committee," the statement (copy below) from Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) reads.

It comes after several Oversight Committee Republicans "invoked dangerous and conspiratorial rhetoric echoing the racist and nativist tropes peddled by white supremacists and right-wing extremists," during a February hearing on the "border crisis," Ranking Member Raskin said in a March 5 letter to Committee Chair James Comer (photo, top.) The Washington Post first reported on Raskin’s letter.

"In particular, some Members repeatedly described the number of migrants arriving at the border as an 'invasion,' and even went so far as to falsely accuse the Biden-Harris Administration of implementing a plan 'to deliberately open our border' for purposes of 'changing our culture'—mirroring language often used by MAGA extremists who believe that pro-immigration policies are designed to replace white populations with non-white immigrants and other racial minorities," Raskin's letter says.
Story by Joshua Wilburn

As Tucker Carlson continues to release more footage from the January 6 investigation, former president Donald Trump has decided to chime in. The business CEO turned politician is calling for not only the release of those arrested for the attempted insurrection, but also for the arrest of the committee ruling over the investigation.

Trump claims that the recently released footage of the “January 6 Shaman” being escorted around the capitol “totally discredits” the entire operation and calls those in charge of the investigation “political hacks and thugs.”

In a recent Truth Social post the former president shared a video of a capitol cop wearing a MAGA resigning from the force believing he didn’t see any future for himself in that position. The post included a statement in all caps which read: “GREAT JOB BY TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.”
Story by Ryan Naumann

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been accused of providing inaccurate and incomplete financial records as part of his Chapter 11 bankruptcy, RadarOnline.com has learned. According to court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com, a group of unsecured creditors owed money from Jones are asking the judge for help.

As we previously reported, last year, Jones filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay over $1.5 billion to the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The podcast host was sued after claiming the horrific event was fake. In their filing, the creditors explain Jones has failed to file his list of Schedules and Statements, which is a complete list of his assets and debts. The creditors claim the financial reports filed by Jones are “incomplete and contain inaccuracies.”
Story by David Goldman

The White House lashed out at Fox News host Tucker Carlson Wednesday in an extraordinary rebuke of the late-night commentator who has been airing false depictions of the January 6, 2021, attack this week. Carlson, given access to about 40,000 hours of US Capitol security camera footage by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, has aired carefully selected clips to portray the pro-Trump mob as peaceful patriots. Carlson falsely claimed that the footage provided “conclusive” evidence that Democrats and the House select committee that investigated January 6 lied to Americans about the day’s events.

According to the Justice Department, 140 officers were assaulted at the Capitol that day, including 60 Metropolitan Police officers and 80 US Capitol Police officers. The Fox News host was roundly lambasted by the Capitol Police, Democratic lawmakers and some Republicans this week. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates added to the condemnation Wednesday. “We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives,” Bates said. “We also agree with what Fox News’s own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed in multiple courts of law: That Tucker Carlson is not credible.”
Story by Alex Griffing

Controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) made clear her frustration with Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) calling out controversial past statements by a GOP witness on Wednesday during a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on energy policy. Bush, who is the ranking member on the Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs subcommittee, was in the middle of giving her opening statement when Boebert asked Bush’s remarks be “taken down.”

“Future events can be best ameliorated or prevented by reducing our demand for and our reliance on fossil fuels,” argued Bush in her opening statement, adding: But my Republican colleagues have unironically invited for-profit think tank and oil titans whose expertise is in maximizing profits, especially at the expense of our Black or Brown and our indigenous neighbors’ health, safety, and well-being.

One of these so-called energy experts is a philosopher who has previously espoused White supremacist views. For instance, in his 2000 college newspaper, he wrote, quote, ‘The African and American Studies Department has 23 classes in many of these classes. African culture is presented not– “Mr. Chairman, I demand the gentlelady’s words be taken down,” Boebert objected. “She just called the witness a White supremacist.”
Story by rcohen@insider.com (Rebecca Cohen)

A narcotics detective with the Louisville Metro Police Department was accused multiple times of using charges against female drug addicts to extort them into sex, but he was allowed to resign and was never charged for his actions, a Department of Justice investigation into the LMPD's conduct found. The report, released Wednesday, followed an investigation launched in April 2021 to investigate whether the LMPD practices a pattern of unlawful policing.

In the report, the DOJ accused the LMPD of not appropriately investigating officers accused of sexual misconduct and domestic violence. The report also found that units tapped to investigate claims of domestic violence do not conduct "thorough" investigations and often disregard evidence.

In one example, a woman accused an LMPD narcotics detective of having sex with her daughter, whom he had previously charged with drug possession. The daughter told investigators that the detective sent her nude photos and then leveraged her charges to get her to return the favor. "If he's doing it to me, he's doing it to somebody else," the daughter told investigators.
Fox News caught again manipulating the news and deceiving their viewers. Fox News is fake news, lies, right wing and Russian propaganda

Story by tporter@businessinsider.com (Tom Porter)

Fox News cut out comments by former President Donald Trump in which he said he would have considered letting Russia have parts of Ukraine as part of a peace deal between the nations. In an interview on Fox News host Sean Hannity's radio show on Monday, which is not broadcast by Fox, Trump revealed how he would try and broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in the wake of Russia's invasion last year.

Trump has claimed he can quickly bring an end to the war as he seeks election again in 2024. In the interview, he boasted of how Russia would not have dared to launch an attack during his presidency, and added: "I could have negotiated. At worst, I could've made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could've worked a deal."

The Daily Beast's Justin Baragona reported that when Hannity played excerpts from the interview later that day on his prime time Fox News show, the part where Trump suggests he may have backed an agreement handing parts of Ukraine to Russia was edited out, with the excerpt cutting out after Trump says "I could've negotiated."
Opinion by INTO

In 2006, a Yemeni citizen named Mansoor Adayfi was detained at Guantánamo Bay without cause. “Torture was the mechanism of Guantánamo,” Adayfi told Mike Prysner on the Eyes Left podcast in November. “Torture, abuse, and experimenting on prisoners. We went on a massive hunger strike in 2005. And there was force-feeding. It was torture.”

According to Adayfi, the ringleader of the tormentors at Guantánamo during the Bush years was one Ron DeSantis, current governor of Florida. “I saw a f*cking handsome person come in,” Adayfi continues in a transcript of the conversation in the most recent issue of Harpers, “and he said, “I’m here to ensure that you are treated humanely.” In fact, the opposite was true.
Matthew Chapman

Fox News continues to vehemently deny the allegations made against them in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion lawsuit against their network, claiming that they were only trying to report both sides of a controversy.

But to the contrary, argued former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Tuesday, Dominion has ample evidence that Fox was willfully spreading false information, putting on claims they rigged the 2020 presidential election while executives and top on-air personalities privately admitted to knowing it was all false. And this, she said, is a degree of evidence you don't usually see in defamation cases.

"I want to understand, Joyce, what the significance is, again, of Sidney Powell was only on TV because she was peddling the lie that these hosts knew to be just that, a lie," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "They also understand that their viewers believed it. How do those sorts of peeks into their inner understanding of the facts play as this lawsuit goes forward?"
Story by Alex Henderson

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his MAGA Republican allies in the Florida State Legislature have made no secret of their disdain for the mainstream media. During a roundtable discussion that he hosted in February, DeSantis argued that it should be easier to sue journalists for defamation. And a Republican ally, Florida State Rep. Alex Andrade, later proposed a bill that would do exactly that: Florida House Bill 951.

Andrade's bill would be a blatant violation of New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a tough standard for proving defamation. Under Sullivan, defamation must involve "actual malice," which is very difficult to prove. Dominion Voting Systems is trying to show "actual malice" in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing Fox News, and ironically, the voting technology company would have an easier time proving its case if the High Court overturned Sullivan and agreed with Andrade's bill. Andrade and DeSantis believe that Sullivan was wrongly decided.
Opinion by Ian Millhiser

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to eliminate the First Amendment safeguards that prevent lawsuits seeking to strong-arm the press into silence. He’s been very clear about this goal: In February, DeSantis led a roundtable discussion brainstorming ideas to weaken the press’s First Amendment protections. Flanked by a panel dominated by defamation plaintiffs and lawyers, the Orbánesque governor attacked the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) for, in his words, empowering a media that will “find a way to smear you.”

Sullivan was a historic decision establishing that the government (and, in many cases, private litigants) may not censor the media, political advocates, and the public at large through defamation suits intended to shut down dissenting voices. The case arose out of a Jim Crow-era official’s attempt to silence civil rights protesters. It established that someone accused of making false claims about a public figure regarding a matter of public concern may not be held liable for defamation, unless the statement was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
Story by Matthew Chapman

Fox News continues to vehemently deny the allegations made against them in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion lawsuit against their network, claiming that they were only trying to report both sides of a controversy.

But to the contrary, argued former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Tuesday, Dominion has ample evidence that Fox was willfully spreading false information, putting on claims they rigged the 2020 presidential election while executives and top on-air personalities privately admitted to knowing it was all false. And this, she said, is a degree of evidence you don't usually see in defamation cases.

"I want to understand, Joyce, what the significance is, again, of Sidney Powell was only on TV because she was peddling the lie that these hosts knew to be just that, a lie," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "They also understand that their viewers believed it. How do those sorts of peeks into their inner understanding of the facts play as this lawsuit goes forward?"

"So this is absolutely the key point in this lawsuit for Fox. This is the hurdle that they face," said Vance. "So the defamation here would be Fox defamation of Dominion and their voting machines, not their perpetration of the Big Lie. But ultimately, it's just one big ball of wax, because if the Big Lie isn't true, then the claims against Dominion aren't true. And in a libel case where you have a public figure as the plaintiff — and for better or worse, the courts have decided that little Dominion Voting Machines is a public figure — they have to prove that Fox acted with actual malice. That the statements that Fox made were made with knowledge of their falsity, or with reckless disregard for their truth."
The Fox News pundit is trying to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 — and failing miserably
BY NIKKI MCCANN RAMIREZ

FOR THE SECOND night this week, Tucker Carlson devoted the majority of his broadcast to his long standing campaign to re-write the history of Jan. 6. Tuesday night’s broadcast features virtually none of the 44,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage to which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy granted Carlson and his team exclusive access. Instead, Carlson spent the hour casting Jan. 6 defendants and himself as the true victims of the unseen forces preventing you, dear Fox viewer, from learning the truth of Jan. 6.

On Monday night, Carlson released his initial “findings” from the footage. As expected, the host made explosive accusations of lies and deception against the Jan. 6 committee and democrats based on little more than tidbits of footage of protesters milling about the capitol. Carlson claimed that the protesters had been “meek and obedient […] sightseers” who had treated the Capitol with “reverence.”

On Tuesday the sheer nothingness of Carlson’s discovery became plainly apparent. Carlson opened the show by lambasting lawmakers who had criticized his coverage, particularly the widespread condemnation he received from members of his own party. The Fox host accused lawmakers criticizing him of degrading themselves and endorsing lies and censorship.  
Story by Sarah K. Burris

Former FBI agent Asha Rangappa is posting excerpts of a report about Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) so-called "FBI whistleblowers" from the alleging "deep state" conspiracies at the FBI. A report this week from The New York Timesrevealed that the three "aggrieved former FBI officials who have trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories, including the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol and received financial support from a top ally of former President Donald J. Trump." As part of his ongoing effort to bring down Joe Biden's government, Merrick Garland's Justice Department and the FBI itself, Jordan is running the committee on the "weaponization of government."

"The Committee has now heard from three of these so-called whistleblowers," the report says. "George Hill, a retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst from the FBI's Boston Field Office; Garret O'Boyle, a suspended FBI special agent from the Wichita Resident Agency in Kansas; and Stephen Friend, a former special agent with the FBI's Daytona Beach Resident Agency. None of these witnesses has provided evidence of misconduct by the FBI, the Department of Justice, or any other public official. Each offered a wide range of personal opinions, but to the extent that they testified about matters to which they claim to have firsthand knowledge at all, none showed any evidence of wrongdoing."

Instead, the report implies that they're merely former employees with an axe to grind and being paid to serve as Jordan's "whistleblowers." The report also says that the men have also been "directly connected to a network of extreme MAGA Republican operatives including former Trump administration officials Kash Patel, Russell Vought, and Mark Meadows, who have incentive to promote these witnesses and their meritless claims..."
Sorry Fox news and the right peaceful gathering do not end with over 140 police officers injured or the damage done to the capitol. Please stop lying to the American people we deserve better than that.

By Sahil Kapur

WASHINGTON — Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday released security video from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, using footage provided exclusively to him by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to portray the riot as a peaceful gathering.

Carlson acquired the tapes as part of a push by McCarthy, R-Calif., to win the speaker’s gavel. When McCarthy was struggling to gather the votes to lead the House, Carlson used his program to list two “concessions” he could make to win over far-right Republicans.

“First, release the January 6 files. Not some of the January 6 files and video — all of it,” Carlson, the most-watched host on cable news, said after McCarthy faced three failed votes. “So that the rest of us can finally know what actually happened on January 6, 2021.”
Story by Cami Mondeaux

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is facing an ethics complaint filed by a nonprofit watchdog group that accuses the GOP leader of being politically motivated in his release of security camera footage of the Jan. 6 riot to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Members of Public Citizen filed a complaint against McCarthy on Tuesday, requesting that the Office of Congressional Ethics investigate the speaker over whether he violated House rules. The request comes one day after Carlson began releasing portions of the footage on his prime-time show, prompting concerns among other news outlets he would “advocate an inaccurate story of events.”

“The Speaker’s release of security footage exclusively to Tucker Carlson is pure and simple using congressional resources for partisan gamesmanship — the very type of polarizing gamesmanship that has caused such damage to the public’s perception of the integrity of Congress,” the group wrote in its letter.

McCarthy’s decision to give Carlson the footage came in response to demands from Republican lawmakers who pushed the party leader for weeks to release the video. McCarthy has repeatedly defended his decision to share the footage with Carlson, arguing the release was important to ensure a transparent investigation into the Capitol riot.
Story by Alex Woodward

Days after court filings revealed Fox News personalities and executives privately rejecting bogus claims surrounding the 2020 presidential election, one of the network’s most-watched stars cast about its legitimacy and appeared to defend hundreds of rioters who breached the halls of Congress. In a segment on 6 March that sought to downplay the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, Tucker Carlson said rioters were “right” to believe that the election was “unfairly conducted”.

“The protesters were angry. They believed that the election they had just voted in had been unfairly conducted. And they were right. In retrospect, it is clear that the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy,” he stated. “No honest person can deny it.” He added: “The real crime, they will tell you again and again, is not what happened on Election Day 2020. The real crime is what happened two months later, on January 6.”

But according to court documents, Carlson and other top Fox News personalities, producers and executives privately rejected Donald Trump’s baseless narrative that the election was stolen from him, including bogus claims about a voting machine company suing the network for defamation, while Carlson and others broadly gesture at unfounded conspiracy theories that fuelled the attack.
Story by Tim Dickinson

A blistering new official investigation decries violent, lawless “deputy gangs” that continue to wield extraordinary power within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. The report delivers a call to action for new Sheriff Robert Luna: “It is time to eradicate this 50-year plague upon the County of Los Angeles.” The report identifies at “least a half dozen” active gangs and cliques — and names them: the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators, the Spartans, the Gladiators, the Cowboys, and the Reapers.

These groups pose a threat to the general public — deputies hoping to prove themselves worthy of gang membership routinely seek out violent encounters with the public, the investigation reports — as well as to the internal command-and-control structure of LASD. The gangs “undermine supervision, destroy public trust, are discriminatory, disruptive, and act contrary to … professional policing,” the report concludes.

Perhaps most alarming, the investigation reveals that in recent years “tattooed deputy gang members” have risen to “the highest levels” of department leadership. It calls out recent former Sheriff Alex Villanueva (who lost his 2022 reelection bid) for betraying promises of reform by installing gang members as his right-hand men. Villanueva, the report says, “at minimum tolerated, if not rewarded deputy gangs.”

The new investigation describes a deputy-gang culture that is “deeply embedded” within LASD, calling it a “cancer” that “must be excised.” Conducted by the special counsel to the Civilian Oversight Commission — the county body that watchdogs LASD — the 70-page investigation relied on interviews with nearly 80 witnesses as well as dozens of depositions, court exhibits, and civil lawsuits.
Story by Matt Young

A Florida woman accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is on the lam after tampering with her ankle monitor bracelet and failing to appear at her trial.

An FBI hunt is now underway for Olivia Pollock, who was meant to show up to court Monday to face trial on charges related to the Capitol attacks, including assaulting police officers and interfering with law enforcement. She ultimately “failed to appear,” according to a bench warrant obtained by The Daily Beast. Instead, at court on Monday, Pollock was declared a “fugitive.”

She disappeared Friday with another accused Jan. 6 rioter—Joseph Hutchinson III—after the pair “tampered with or removed the ankle monitors that track their location,” said Joe Boland, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Lakeland, Florida office, according to the Associated Press.

Tennessee is the first state to ban drag performances on public property, as Republicans use government power to attack free speech and expression. MSNBC chief legal correspondent Ari Melber dissects the First Amendment implications of selective government bans on expression in this report. (This is an excerpt of the full discussion that aired on MSNBC).

MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber reports on a bombshell leak in the billion dollar legal earthquake rocking Fox News and its Chief Rupert Murdoch. The New York Times obtaining a recording of a Zoom meeting with Fox’s CEO and the network’s top anchors, which reveals an internal panic over losing viewers for reporting accurate facts. CEO Suzanne Scott saying “if we hadn’t called Arizona… our ratings would have been even bigger.” (This is an excerpt of the full discussion that aired on MSNBC).
Story by Winston Cho

A complaint has been filed against Fox Corp. and chairman Rupert Murdoch over allegations that the network chief gave confidential information in 2020 to former president Donald Trump’s campaign.

In a suit filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday, progressive watchdog group Media Matters claims that Fox made an illegal contribution to Trump’s political action committee when Murdoch shared then-candidate Joe Biden’s campaign advertisements with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. The liberal nonprofit seeks the maximum fine allowable for violations of campaign contribution laws and “appropriate remedial action” against Fox, Murdoch and the Make America Great Again PAC for a “nefarious attempt by people in power to operate a press entity as a political organization.”
Story by Areeba Shah

Domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in the United States last year and all of them had ties to forms of right-wing extremism, including white supremacy, anti-government extremism and right-wing conspiracy theorists, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. Domestic extremist-related mass killings have increased in the past 12 years with most of them being tied to right-wing extremists, the ADL found. Researchers say the most concerning incidents are shootings inspired by white supremacist "accelerationist" propaganda urging such attacks.

"White supremacists who consider themselves accelerationist believe that there's no way they will ever be able to reform or change society to reflect what white supremacists want [and] the only option really is to actually destroy society and from the ashes, build a new white-dominated or white only society," said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the ADL. Due to this extremist belief, accelerationist white supremacists often encourage acts of violence, like shooting sprees that target minority communities so that they can destabilize or weaken groups they view as a threat, he added. The report highlighted that while white supremacists have committed the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, the percentage increased in 2022 – with 21 of the 25 murders being linked to white supremacists.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Scandal-plagued Republican former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters has been convicted of obstruction of government operations, reported 9News on Friday. "Jurors found Peters guilty of obstruction of government operations but acquitted her on a charge of obstruction of a peace officer. She's scheduled for sentencing April 10," reported Janet Oravetz.

"Grand Junction Police approached Peters in a bagel shop in Feb. 8, 2022, to execute a warrant related to her iPad, on which she is suspected of improperly recording a court hearing for her deputy clerk," said the report. "An arrest affidavit says that when officers tried to seize the iPad, people sitting at the table with her started passing around the tablet. Police detained Peters as she allegedly tried to stop an officer from taking the iPad. Video shows Peters yell at and struggle with the officers who detained her." The affidavit claims that Peters then attempted to kick an officer, and shouted when ordered to stop kicking.
Story by Alicia Victoria Lozano

LOS ANGELES — The embattled Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is under fire once gain, this time in a scathing 70-page report by a special counsel tasked with investigating secretive groups, or deputy gangs, that have operated within the agency for decades.

The report by the Civilian Oversight Commission condemned the cliques, whose members engage in “egregious misconduct” like using excessive force and threatening colleagues, as a “cancer” that must be banned immediately. It also accused the the union that represents the sheriff's deputies of failing to stop the gangs and protecting alleged members.

The report said that although the groups may have started decades ago with "benign intentions," they have evolved into deputy gangs "whose members not only use gang-like symbols but engage in gang-type and criminal behavior directed against the public and other Department members,” the report stated.
Story by Travis Gettys

Some parents in New York are unhappy with the response of school officials to a series of TikTok videos depicting a shooting and making violent threats against Black students. Three students allegedly made the videos, one of which shows George Fischer Middle School principal John Piscitella talking with a 37-second racist rant overdubbed and a school shooting threat against Black students, and another formatted the same way with the overdubbed voice slurring Black and Hispanic people and making lynching threats, reported the Rockland/Westchester Journal News.

"I'll hang you like the KKK," the voice says. "The KKK legacy will return." The Putnam County sheriff's office investigated and quickly determined the students hadn't broken any laws, but parents are worried the threats weren't being taken seriously enough by school officials or law enforcement. "Who's to say these teens won't retaliate when they return?" said parent Abigail Santana. She said her middle-schooler and others had seen a recording that showed a video game with characters shooting at Black and brown students in a classroom at the Carmel school, and one legal expert said the videos could be considered terroristic threats.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Weeks after creating an uproar at President Joe Biden's State of the Union address where he accused them of want to cut Social Security, Republicans are doing just that. According to a report from the Daily Beast's Ursula Perano, the booing and jeering of Biden had hardly faded before Republican members of Congress began proposing increasing the target age for taking advantage of Social Security benefits from 67 to 70.

That has set off new "alarm bells" after the furor had died down. The report notes that Democrats are listening to what Republicans are pitching with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) claiming the talks are "very preliminary" and so far just a "problem solving discussion."
Story by Josephine Harvey

Seth Meyers was astonished by one of the names Tucker Carlson called Donald Trump in a private text message. In the text to his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, on Jan. 6, 2021, Carlson allegedly said Trump was “a demonic force, a destroyer, but he’s not going to destroy us.” That detail was revealed in a court filing last month from Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion over its coverage of the 2020 election.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Leonard Leo, the right-wing leader of the judicial activist network the Federalist Society, is coming under scrutiny for his "lavish" use of the organization's funds to live the high life, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.

"A network of political non-profits formed by judicial activist Leonard Leo moved at least $43 million to a new firm he is leading, raising questions about how his conservative legal movement is funded," reported Heidi Przybyla. "Leo’s own personal wealth appeared to have ballooned as his fundraising prowess accelerated since his efforts to cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority helped to bring about its decision to overturn abortion rights. Most recently, Leo reaped a $1.6 billion windfall from a single donor in what is likely the biggest single political gift in U.S. history."

Leo has been a massively influential figure, often called Trump's "judge whisperer" for the outsized role he played in getting right-wing jurists seated who have been involved in everything from dismantling abortion rights, to rolling back voting and redistricting protections, to undermining the regulatory process.

According to POLITICO, which has obtained records of Leo's finances over the last two decades, Leo's personal wealth skyrocketed under President Donald Trump, with whom he worked closely to appoint a steady stream of right-wing judges to the federal bench including three at the Supreme Court — "the same period during which he erected a for-profit ecosystem around his longtime nonprofit empire that is shielded from taxes."
Story by Brad Reed

Legal experts reacted with shock to new reporting from the Washington Post claiming that some FBI agents were "afraid" of executing a search warrant at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort to retrieve top-secret government documents. According to the Post's report, FBI agents battled with Department of Justice prosecutors over how to investigate the former president's handling of classified material, as they feared becoming targets of the former president and his allies if they conducted a lawful search of his property.

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who himself was targeted by Trump for his work early in the FBI probe of the Trump campaign's multiple contacts with Russian agents, was stunned that agents would be intimidated by the former president. "An astonishing article. In 20 years of working cases involving classified information, I never -- not once -- encountered prosecutors who wanted to get a search warrant and reluctant -- even refusing! -- agents," he remarked on Twitter. "The other way around, sure."
Story by David Edwards

Conservative broadcaster Steve Bannon may have earned himself an FCC fine on Wednesday by blurting out a banned curse word during an angry rant at House Republicans.

On his Real America's Voice War Room program, Bannon complained about "deeply sick" House Republicans who support Ukraine. "What is the House doing? Why are these things taking so long?" he said of investigations of the FBI. The host griped about Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher (WI) because he recently criticized former Sen. Joe McCarthy, who held hearings about communism in the U.S.

"Don't be trashing Joe McCarthy," Bannon said. "Joe McCarthy got to the bottom of a lot of stuff, including who sold us out and gave the Chinese Communist Party [to] China, which was the U.S. government State Department." He said the U.S. government was supportive of China's communists. "Got totally f--king — oh, boy," Bannon said, catching his curse word. "Just used the F-word right there. Boom! There goes a fine. I'm worked up."
by Zack Budryk

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mt.) will join Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) in voting for a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to block a Labor Department rule allowing the consideration of environmental factors in money managers’ decisions.

In a statement Wednesday, Tester said he will vote for the resolution, which concerns use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investment in some retirement accounts. While Manchin has backed the resolution from the beginning, Tester had been noncommittal before Wednesday.

“At a time when working families are dealing with higher costs, from health care to housing, we need to be focused on ensuring Montanans’ retirement savings are on the strongest footing possible,” Tester said. “I’m opposing this Biden administration rule because I believe it undermines retirement accounts for working Montanans and is wrong for my state.” Manchin has long been vocally against the rule, co-sponsoring the CRA resolution in February.
Devan Cole Hannah Rabinowitz
By Devan Cole, Hannah Rabinowitz and Tierney Sneed, CNN

Washington CNN — Attorney General Merrick Garland is appearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday, where he’s facing a colorful array of questions on everything from the federal investigation into Hunter Biden to the sale of deadly drugs, Taylor Swift tickets and FBI investigations. Garland’s appearance before the Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee marks his first trip to Capitol Hill this year. It comes as investigations into President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have taken center stage in recent months.

The attorney general’s opening statement touched on topics like efforts to combat the rise of violent crime and hate crimes, work to protect reproductive freedom across the country, and the department’s accomplishments in partnering with the Ukrainian government against Russian aggression. “Every day, the 115,000 employees of the Justice Department work tirelessly to fulfill our mission: to uphold the rule of law, to keep our country safe, and to protect civil rights,” Garland said in his opening statement, lauding employees’ efforts to protect national security and “our country’s democratic institutions.” Here are takeaways and key moments from the hearing:
"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic were most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray said Tuesday.
By Dareh Gregorian, Ken Dilanian, Tom Winter and Sahil Kapur

FBI Director Chris Wray said Tuesday that Beijing has stymied efforts by the U.S. and others to investigate the origins of the coronavirus. In an interview with Fox News, Wray said the FBI believes that Covid probably originated from a "potential lab incident" in Wuhan but that the Chinese government has essentially interfered with the its ongoing probe. "The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Wray told Fox News host Bret Baier.

“I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work here, the work that we’re doing, the work that our U.S. government and close foreign partners are doing, and that's unfortunate for everybody,” he added. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By Brendan Bordelon | Politico

As House Republicans push for quick action on a Chinese-owned app that’s “too dangerous to be on our children’s phones,” Democrats fret over unintended consequences and urge caution until the completion of an ongoing security review.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee forced through a bill that could effectively ban TikTok from all mobile devices in the U.S. despite united opposition from Democrats — a rare breakdown of congressional bipartisanship on the alleged threat posed by Chinese tech.

“Everybody knows what TikTok is,” committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said on Tuesday as the panel debated the fate of the popular Chinese-owned video app. “It’s too dangerous to be on our phones as members of Congress. In my judgment, it’s too dangerous to be on our children’s phones. That’s the whole point of this bill.”
The Guardian

Intelligence agencies find no foreign adversary behind 'Havana syndrome': report. A review by US intelligence agencies could not conclude that a foreign adversary was behind “Havana syndrome,” a mysterious health ailment that affected US government workers overseas, the Washington Post reports.
CBS News

Closing arguments in the trial of disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh began Wednesday, marking the near-final phase of a trial that has stretched on for weeks. Murdaugh, who is part of a prominent local family in the South Carolina Lowcountry, is accused of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, at their home on June 7, 2021. Jurors visited the Colleton County home, called Moselle, on Wednesday morning in response to a request from the defense granted by Judge Clifton Newman.

Jurors were given 30 minutes to view the property, in particular to see where the bodies of 52-year-old Maggie and 22-year-old Paul were found at the kennels and shed. They were not expected to go inside the main house, about 1,000 feet away, where Murdaugh said he was at the approximate time of the murders. Prosecutors say if that were the case, he should have been able to hear the rifle or shotgun blasts.
Grace Hauck, Thao Nguyen | USA TODAY

CHICAGO – Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for a second term as Chicago mayor Tuesday in the nation's third-largest city after facing widespread criticism over her divisive leadership and the city's increase in crime. Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson will advance to the April 4 runoff to be the next mayor of Chicago after none of the nine candidates won a majority in the officially nonpartisan election. Lightfoot, who made history in 2019 when she became the city's first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve as mayor, fell in popularity after Chicago saw a spike in crime following the coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, opponents have blamed her for the increase in crime and criticized her as being a divisive, overly contentious leader. She's also received criticism for her handling of an 11-day teachers' strike, the COVID-19 pandemic, and protests in the summer of 2020. Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, Lightfoot called being Chicago’s mayor “the honor of a lifetime.”
Story by insider@insider.com (Cheryl Teh)

A book critic for The New York Times has written a searing criticism of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' new memoir. "While his first book was weird and esoteric enough to have obviously been written by a human, this one reads like a politician's memoir churned out by ChatGPT," nonfiction book critic Jennifer Szalai wrote in her review on Monday.

She was referencing OpenAI's generative AI tool, ChatGPT, which has been known to produce content ranging from college essays to full-length books. Szalai also wrote that DeSantis' memoir, "The Courage to Be Free," appeared to be "courageously free of anything that resembles charisma, or a discernible sense of humor."
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