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US Monthly Headline News May 2022 - Page 4
Bill McCarthy

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has repeatedly invoked the “great replacement theory” on his show, platforming a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory that has inspired several mass shootings, including the recent attack in Buffalo, New York. A New York Times investigation identified more than 400 episodes of Carlson’s show in which he pushed core tenets of the conspiracy theory. Minutes after claiming he was “still not sure exactly what it is,” Carlson again promoted the theory, claiming that Democrats were conspiring to transform the electorate. Fox News host Tucker Carlson falsely claimed he was unfamiliar with the racist and antisemitic "great replacement theory" cited by the mass shooter in Buffalo, New York. "You’ve heard a lot about the ‘great replacement theory’ recently," Carlson said on his primetime show May 17. "It is everywhere in the last two days, and we are still not sure exactly what it is." Carlson’s critics and viewers would have been right to think twice about his feigned ignorance.
By MEG KINNARD

Former President George W. Bush is facing criticism after mistakenly describing the invasion of Iraq — which he led as commander in chief — as “brutal” and “wholly unjustified,” before correcting himself to say he meant to refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean of Ukraine,” Bush said Wednesday night during a speech at his presidential center in Dallas. The 75-year-old former president jokingly blamed the mistake on his age, shaking his head and correcting himself, drawing laughter from the crowd. “Iraq, too — anyway,” he added, before moving on without explaining the Iraq reference. In his remarks, Bush also likened Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill, a comparison he also made earlier this month after meeting with Zelenskyy via video chat, according to social posts from his presidential center.
Tommy Christopher

Ten illegitimate electors for ex-President Donald Trump are being sued — and could face millions of dollars in fines — in what is being called the first lawsuit of its kind. A raft of local Wisconsin Republican officials who signed on to a fake slate of electors in the 2020 presidential election — Bob Spindell, Andrew Hitt, Kelly Ruh, Carol Brunner, Scott Grabins, Bill Feehan, Kathy Kiernan, Darryl Carlson, Pam Travis, and Mary Buestrin — are named in a suit that seeks to block them from submitting fake elector papers in the future, to stop them from ever serving as electors, and to fine each of them up to $200,000.00.
aharoun@insider.com (Azmi Haroun)

A federal judge ordered MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay part of Smartmatic's legal fees in the voting company's defamation lawsuit against him, also dismissing counter-suits Lindell had filed against Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems. In the Friday ruling, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said that because of "frivolous" and "groundless," claims, his counter-suits could be dismissed, and his lawyers would also be sanctioned. "The Court concludes that at the very least Lindell's claim against Smartmatic under the Support or Advocacy Clause falls on the frivolous side of the line (other claims do too)," Nichols wrote, according to the ruling. "As a result, the Court orders Lindell and his previous counsel to pay some of the fees and costs Smartmatic has incurred defending itself and moving for sanctions."
Wwj Newsroom

BIRMINGHAM (WWJ) -- A teacher in Oakland County is on administrative leave after giving students a biology assignment that compared former President Barack Obama to primates. The teacher's lesson at Roeper School, a private school located in Birmingham, was an introduction to primates, and the worksheet included pictures of monkeys, apes, lemurs -- and Obama. The assignment asked, “Which of the following are primates?”
jzitser@businessinsider.com (Joshua Zitser)

Former President Donald Trump is telling his close allies that the potential overturning of Roe v Wade could cost him politically, hurting his chances of winning reelection should he run again in 2024, according to Rolling Stone. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Rolling Stone reported that Trump has been telling allies that the issue of abortion could turn "suburban women" against him. "Suburban women have been a recurring concern for [former] President Trump, including during the 2020 campaign, when his smarter advisers were sounding the alarm to him about how he was losing suburbs," a source said, per Rolling Stone. "He is … worried women in the suburbs could punish him for this one day, [too]," the source continued. Since a draft opinion to overturn Roe v Wade was leaked, Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet about it. He has not referenced it on Truth Social and has only once alluded to it once during a rally, Rolling Stone reported. Two sources told the media outlet that the silence is "intentional and calculated."
Lee Moran

Alocal Colorado news anchor reminded viewers of Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.) past open embrace of the racist “replacement theory” that reportedly inspired the massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, last weekend. “There are some conservative political figures that will hint about this theory or speak about it in code. And then there’s Colorado’s Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert,” Kyle Clark said on Denver’s 9News this week. Clark cut to footage of Boebert talking just last year about the baseless conspiracy theory that claims Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with immigrants.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot move forward with a plan to discontinue pandemic-related emergency rules that allow U.S. border agents to rapidly expel migrants to Mexico or their home countries on public health grounds, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled Friday. Judge Robert Summerhays of the U.S. District Court in Lafayette, Louisiana, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Biden administration from ending the restrictions, known as Title 42, on May 23, when the CDC had planned to stop authorizing the border expulsions. Agreeing with arguments presented by Republican attorneys general who sued the Biden administration, Summerhays, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, said the CDC had improperly terminated Title 42, a public health authority enacted during World War II. In the 47-page ruling, Summerhays said the CDC should have allowed the public to comment on Title 42's termination before finalizing it. "Simply put, the CDC has not explained how the present circumstances prevented the CDC from issuing the Termination Order through the required notice and comment process," he wrote. Before his ruling on Friday, Summerhays had already issued a temporary restraining order barring the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from starting to phase out Title 42 before the May 23 termination date.
by Seth Freed Wessler | ProPublica

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. In July of 2021, a professional architectural historian named Erin Edwards delivered what she expected would be the near-final draft of a report about a contested swath of sugar cane plantation land along the Mississippi River in Louisiana. The painstaking survey, for her bosses at a consulting firm, was supposed to identify harms to historic sites so that developers can prevent or minimize them. Edwards’ report detailed how a proposed $400 million grain elevator, almost the height of the Statue of Liberty, would disrupt sites that are both sacred and dedicated to educating people about slavery and its aftermath. These included homes in the 750-person community of Wallace, an African American cemetery and the nearby Whitney Plantation Museum, which serves as a memorial to generations of people forced to work the fields against their will. The draft said vermin, loud noises and ground vibrations would likely invade the quiet space of the museum, which draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. For many residents of Wallace and nearby communities in St. John the Baptist Parish, the site holds deeper meaning. They are the descendents of people who’d once been enslaved there.
Associated Press

Around 1 in 20 residents in Arkansas and Tennessee were missed during the 2020 census, and four other U.S. states had significant undercounts of their populations which could shortchange them of federal funding in the current decade, according to figures from a survey the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday. In Florida, and Texas, undercounts appear to have cost them congressional seats too. On the flip side, residents in eight states were overcounted during the once-a-decade head count that is used to allocate political power and federal funding. In Minnesota and Rhode Island, overcounts appear to have helped save them from losing congressional seats. In the remaining 36 states and the District of Columbia, the overcounts and undercounts were not statistically significant. Undercounts signal people were missed. Overcounts suggest they were counted more than once, as for example, children of divorced parents who share custody or people with vacation homes.
Associated Press

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously approved a report finding that Republican Gov. Kristi Noem’s daughter got preferential treatment while she was applying for a real-estate appraiser’s license in 2020. The findings of last year’s legislative probe, which was conducted by a Republican-controlled Government Operations and Audit Committee, repudiate Noem’s insistence that her daughter, Kassidy Peters, didn’t receive special treatment with her application. An  Associated Press report on Noem’s actions surrounding her daughter’s licensure sparked the investigation. State lawmakers on Wednesday approved the committee’s findings by a voice vote and without discussion. Noem, who is running for re-election and is positioned for a 2024 White House bid, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, despite holding a meeting that included Peters and key decision-makers from the agency that was evaluating her license application just days after the agency moved to deny her the license. After the meeting, Peters received another opportunity to demonstrate she could meet federal standards and was ultimately awarded the license.
by John Kruzel

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urged Arizona lawmakers to intervene after former President Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat in the state, pressing them to set aside Joe Biden’s slate of electors and put forth “a clean slate of Electors,” according to The Washington Post. The newly revealed communications came in emails Ginni Thomas sent on Nov. 9, 2020 — six days after the election — to a pair of lawmakers, pressing them to work on Trump’s behalf and “fight back against fraud,” according to the Post. The explosive revelation adds a new layer of detail to previous reporting on Thomas’s efforts in the weeks after the 2020 election. The Post previously reported that she strategized with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows over how to bypass the will of American voters to install Trump for a second White House term despite his loss to Biden, an outcome she described as an “obvious fraud” and “the greatest heist of our history.”
Brandon Contes

Utah Jazz legend John Stockton has willingly placed himself in controversy once again, writing a letter to a federal judge in support of a woman who was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Janet Buhler, the woman receiving support from Stockton, pled guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building and is reportedly facing up to six months in prison. Buhler was originally charged with five misdemeanors for her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, but the additional counts were dropped in her plea deal. According to Stockton’s letter, Buhler is the wife of former Jazz team chiropractor Craig Buhler. The 10 time NBA All-Star categorized Dr. Craig Buhler as one of his closest friends, adding that he’s known the chiropractor’s wife for 17 years. “Janet Buhler is one of the kindest people I have ever known,” Stockton wrote. “She has spent a lifetime helping her family, including her husband, care for their patients. She goes to church regularly, volunteers at the homeless shelter, and teaches music endlessly, piano and violin, to children in her own home.” “I have never heard her raise her voice, or confront anyone. In fact, she is quite reserved,” Stockton continued. “She is intelligent and good company. I frankly cannot imagine that Janet could knowingly break the law, nor be involved in anything destructive, ever, no matter the situation. In my opinion, Janet Buhler is a quality person of high character.”
By Mark Morales, Eric Levenson and Samantha Beech, CNN

(CNN) At least 15 people joined suspected Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron's private account on the communications app Discord shortly before the shooting at the Tops Friendly Markets store, a person with knowledge of Discord's internal investigation told CNN. A Discord spokesperson previously confirmed that Gendron had sent out an invitation to a small group of people to view his chat logs about 30 minutes before the violence. "A private, invite-only server was created by the suspect to serve as a personal diary chat log," the Discord spokesperson told CNN on Tuesday. "Approximately 30 minutes prior to the attack, however, a small group of people were invited to and joined the server. Before that, our records indicate no other people saw the diary chat log in this private server." After the suspected shooter invited people to join the server, his posts would have been accessible to invitees as well as anyone they may have shared access with, the spokesperson said. Discord removed the server and related content "as soon as" it was aware of it following the shooting, the spokesperson said.
By Matthew Chapman | Raw Story

On Thursday, Bloomberg Law reported that MyPillow CEO and pro-Trump election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and his attorneys face sanctions for a "frivolous" lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The decision was handed down by federal judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of former President Donald Trump. "A federal judge in Washington on Thursday imposed sanctions on Lindell and his former lawyers as part of a decision throwing out the CEO’s defamation lawsuits against Dominion Voting Systems Inc. and Smartmatic Corp., which were falsely placed at the center of a vast conspiracy theory after the election," said the report. "Lindell, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump, filed his suit after the companies sued him for defamation over his election-fraud claims," said the report. "Nichols said the CEO failed to properly allege a conspiracy by the two companies or back up his claim that they defamed him. The judge also partially granted Smartmatic’s motion for sanctions and fees. The amount will be decided later."
Ray Hartmann

A California man who was among the rioters occupying the U.S. Senate chambers during the January 6 has pleaded guilty to felony charges and faces substantial prison time. Christian Alexander Secor, 23, of Costa Mesa, California, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia to obstruction of an official proceeding, according to the Department of Justice. Secor, who is to be sentenced on October 7, faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. But under Secor’s plea agreement, the DOJ maintains the defendant should receive a prison sentence of 51-to-63 months, which if imposed would be among the longest handed out to date. But the agreement also states the Secor “does reserve the right to challenge that finding “solely on the grounds that his offense did not involve causing or threatening to cause physical injury to a person or property damage.” If that position prevailed, Secor would face 21 to 27 months in prison under the guidelines.
Dave Goldiner

J.R. Majewski, a far-right-wing Republican congressional candidate from Ohio, called for states who supported former President Trump’s failed bid for the White House in 2020 to secede from the U.S. The MAGA candidate vying to unseat Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) said after the 2020 election that conservative states have little choice but to leave the union, CNN reported. “Every state that went red should secede from the United States,” Majewski said on a live stream app. “I don’t think it sounds out there.” Republican candidate J.R. Majewski is running for Congress in Ohio. Majewski, an open adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, said the action was necessary because the liberals who voted for President Biden in record numbers are “f---ing psychotic.”
Julia Conley

Advocates for independently-owned businesses warned that restaurants, gyms, and other Main Street businesses across the U.S. will be forced to close in the coming months after Republicans in the Senate on Thursday blocked a $48 billion package to provide relief to owners who have struggled to stay afloat during the coronavirus pandemic. The bipartisan Small Business Covid Relief Act (S. 4008), which was meant to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) passed last year, was cosponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., but still failed to get more than five Republican senators to support it. The vast majority of GOP lawmakers claimed that helping locally-owned restaurants and bars to stay open and continue employing people in their communities would worsen inflation and contribute to the deficit, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., saying on the Senate floor that "dumping more money in the economy is simply pouring $5-a-gallon gas on an already out-of-control fire." As a result, said Erika Polmar of the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC), "we estimate more than half of the 177,300 restaurants waiting for an RRF grant will close in the next few months."
That is ironic coming from Justice Thomas

The Southern Maryland Chronicle

(The Center Square) – It’s been two weeks, and there’s still no word on who leaked the U.S. Supreme Court draft brief indicating that the court was set to overturn Roe V. Wade and return the issue of abortion back to the states. At a recent event in Dallas, Texas, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, and the Manhattan Institute, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke about the leak and his concern for the rule of law and the court’s credibility. A roughly 8-minute clip of his talk was published by C-SPAN, in which he said, “I think we are in danger of destroying the institutions that are required for a free society. You can’t have a civil society, a free society, without a stable legal system. “You can’t have one without stability in things like property or interpretation and impartial judiciary. I’ve been in this business long enough to know just how fragile it is.” Before the draft opinion was leaked this year, Thomas said it was impossible to think that anyone would leak even one line of one opinion. “No one would ever do that,” he said. “There’s such a belief in the rule of law, belief in the court, belief in what we were doing, that that was beyond anyone’s understanding or at least anyone’s imagination, that someone would do that.” Now, “look where we are,” he said. “That trust and belief are gone forever. When you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder. It’s like infidelity that you can explain, but you can’t undo it."
Joey Garrison, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said "white supremacy is a poison" and vowed "hate will not prevail" during a trip Tuesday to Buffalo, New York, where he grieved with family members of 10 victims killed Saturday in a racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket. "What happened here is simple, straightforward terrorism," Biden said. "Domestic terrorism inflicted in the service of hate and a vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior." Biden and first lady Jill Biden met with families of the shooting victims, who ranged from 32 to 86 years old. Most were Black, either shopping or working at a Tops Friendly Market in one of Buffalo's highest concentrated African American neighborhoods. The slain included a civil rights advocate, a deacon and a heroic security guard. The president condemned the gunman's "hateful, perverse ideology rooted in fear and racism" and called out those who have pushed the "Great Replacement Theory" – the belief that white Americans are being systematically "replaced" by immigrants and minorities. Biden said that "through the media and politics," the Internet has "radicalized angry, lost and isolated individuals" into believing the theory.
Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff

AFlorida appeals court on Friday ruled the state can move forward with redistricting plans backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that dismantle a largely Black district in north Florida, reversing an injunction granted by a lower court in response to a Democratic-backed lawsuit challenging the legality of the map.

Key Facts
The Tallahassee-based First District Court of Appeal determined the lower court erred by blocking the map, noting "there is a high likelihood that the temporary injunction is unlawful." DeSantis-appointed Leon County Circuit Judge Layne Smith issued the injunction last week, contending the new map violates the Fair Districts Amendments in the state constitution by moving the 5th congressional district out of north Florida. The district, which straddles about 150 miles along the Georgia border, is majority-minority, with Black residents composing more than 40% of the population. DeSantis claims the district's location is unconstitutional because of how long it stretches.
Ed Pilkington | Guardian News

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is failing to address the rising scourge of white supremacist violence despite stark warnings that such attacks pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat in the US, a leading authority on law enforcement has told the Guardian. Michael German, a former FBI special agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups in the 1990s, said the bureau continues to underplay the scope of the threat. As a result, communities targeted by white supremacists and far-right militia groups – such as the largely African American neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed by a suspected racist gunman this week – are left fatally exposed. Related: How the Buffalo massacre is part of US tradition: ‘We’ll continue to see killings’ “US law enforcement is failing, as it long has, to provide victimized communities like Buffalo’s with equal protection under the law. They are not actually investigating the crimes that occur,” said German, a fellow with the Brennan Center at NYU School of Law. Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo was allegedly carried out by a white gunman who selected the Tops supermarket because it served one of the largest Black populations in the state. In a 180-page diatribe he is believed to have posted online, he espoused the false racist belief that white Americans are being “replaced” by immigrants of colour.
Tech mogul Elon Musk announced on Twitter that he wants to switch political parties and join the GOP. On this week's episode of "Unfiltered," CNN's SE Cupp analyzes why that may be and what Musk's move says about the Republican Party.
Luke Gentile

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born creator of Fox News, was also on Midler's list. The 76-year-old Hocus Pocus actress called for his American citizenship to be revoked. "#tuckercarlson should be arrested and tried for sedition and fomenting insurrection. #Murdoch should have his citizenship revoked; the damage he continues to do to our democracy will soon become irreparable," Midler tweeted.
Aaron Parsley

Michigan's top election official, Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson, received numerous threats after she refused to overturn the election results in 2020 that showed Joe Biden won the state's 16 electoral votes. A particularly chilling one allegedly came from Donald Trump. "Even the president himself had called on me to be arrested and tried for treason, potentially executed," Benson, a Democrat who is running for reelection this year, tells NBC News in a new interview. Benson said she learned of then-President Trump's suggestion from a source familiar with conversations in a White House meeting when he made it. "It was surreal and I felt sad," she said of hearing about the meeting and what had been suggested. When asked for a comment on Benson's claims in the NBC News report, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich claimed Benson committed "a serious assault on free and fair elections." "Secretary Benson was observed destroying thousands of ballots on the night of the 2020 Election to swing the election for Joe Biden," Budowich said, adding that "NBC News did not ask Benson about this serious crime." Budowch also told NBC News, "I have it on good authority that Secretary Benson knowingly lied throughout her interview."
Is Tucker Carlson on drugs or just deflecting because the killer was white?

Ron Dicker

Tucker Carlson on Thursday said he doesn’t believe that the self-professed white supremacist charged in the shooting deaths of 10 people in a Buffalo, New York, supermarket was influenced by racist ideology. (Watch the video below.) The Fox News host used a domestic terrorism bill passed by the House this week as a jumping-off point into denial of the problem. He obfuscated the definition of white supremacists and hate crimes ― “whatever those are” ― and referenced Martin Luther King Jr. to bolster his argument. After showing a clip of lawmakers decrying the proliferation of racially motivated domestic terrorism, Carlson offered his twisted take: “So, they are continuing to tell you, in the face of all available evidence, that the mass murder you saw over the weekend in Buffalo was inspired by hateful right-wing rhetoric, when in fact that mass murder was committed by someone with diagnosed mental illness that the adults around him apparently ignored,” the prime time star said. “So, you saw a shooting by a crazy person that has been hijacked by partisan forces to crush political dissent, to attack civil liberties in this country. You should care about that,” he continued. Mediaite noted there’s been no public disclosure of the accused shooter’s mental health diagnosis after an evaluation last year.
By Bob Brigham | RawStory

Georgia GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk is facing scrutiny from the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. "Based on our review of evidence in the Select Committee's possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021," Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) wrote in a letter to Loudermilk on Thursday. "The foregoing information raises questions to which the Select Committee must seek answers. Public reporting and witness accounts indicate some individuals and groups engaged in efforts to gather information about the layout of the U.S. Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, in advance of January 6, 2021," read the letter, which was also signed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). "In response to those allegations, Republicans on the Committee on House Administration—of which you are a Member—claimed to have reviewed security footage from the days preceding January 6th and determined that '[t]here were no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.' However, the Select Committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial," the letter stated.
By Brian Fung, CNN Business

Washington (CNN Business) Twitter will now apply warning labels to — and cease recommending — claims that outside experts have identified as misinformation during fast-moving times of crisis, the social media company said Thursday. The platform's new crisis misinformation policy is designed to slow the spread of viral falsehoods during natural disasters, armed conflict and public health emergencies, the company announced. For example, the policy bans "demonstrably false" or misleading claims of targeted war crimes; false reports of events unfolding on the ground in the midst of a conflict; and false claims about the use of weapons. Special attention will be given to government-affiliated or state-run media accounts making such claims, Twitter (TWTR (TWTR)) said. "To determine whether claims are misleading, we require verification from multiple credible, publicly available sources, including evidence from conflict monitoring groups, humanitarian organizations, open-source investigators, journalists, and more," Twitter's head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, wrote in a blog post.
Analysis by Brian Fung, CNN

(CNN) Texas residents can now sue Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for allegedly censoring their content after a federal appeals court sided Wednesday with the state's law restricting how social media sites can moderate their platforms. The 15-word ruling allowing the law, which had been blocked last year, to take effect has significant potential consequences. Most immediately, it creates new legal risks for the tech giants, and opens them up to a possible wave of litigation that legal experts say would be costly and difficult to defend. Texas's law makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more US monthly users to "block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression." The law creates enormous uncertainty about how social media will actually function in Texas, according to legal experts, and raises questions about what users' online spaces may look like and what content they may find there, if the companies are even able to run their services at all.
Rachel Olding

President Donald Trump was so deeply involved in the desperate, last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election results that he hand-wrote strategy notes, hired at least ten lawyers to work on just one court case, and spoke regularly with one of his lead lawyers both directly and through six conduits. John Eastman, the law professor tapped by Trump to craft a legal strategy to keep him in power, detailed those extensive communications in a new court filing late Thursday as he argued it should all be shielded from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection because of attorney-client privilege or attorney work product protections. Eastman has been battling the House Committee in California federal court in an effort to prevent it accessing tens of thousands of pages of emails from his email address with Chapman University, where he worked as a law professor until shortly after the Capitol riot. But U.S. District Court Judge David Carter has not been impressed with Eastman’s arguments thus far. In one blistering ruling from March in which he ordered Eastman to hand over 101 emails, Carter found that Eastman and Trump “more likely than not” committed a felony by trying to obstruct Congress and overturn the results of the 2020 election.
By Bob Brigham | RawStory

Rep. Madison Cawthorn suffered further humiliation on Thursday after calling for a "Dark MAGA" movement to defeat "cowardly and weak" Republicans. Cawthorn's comments came to days after he became the youngest Republican congressman to lose a primary. "There are other National figures who I believe are patriots, but I am on a mission now to expose those who say and promise one thing yet legislate and work towards another, self-profiteering, globalist goal. The time for gentile (sic) politics as usual has come to an end," he wrote. "It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command." "We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming," he threatened. Cawthorn's statement generated a great deal of commentary online. "Dark MAGA has been a growing concept among very online Trump supporters this spring. Basically it means you stole the election from us, NOW we're going to be bad," explained Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer. "Dark MAGA is an aesthetic built around glorifying ultraviolence and imagined revenge of Trump and allies against those who... uh... voted against him I guess," explained fact-checker Brooke Binkowski. "It should be watched."
Sky Palma

A new report says there's a faction of Trump supporters on the rise, labeling themselves with the hashtag #DarkMAGA. According to Newsweek's Giulia Carbonaro, Dark MAGA is a "post-alt-right aesthetic that promotes an authoritarian version of Trump in dystopian, Terminator-like images. In some, the Trump Tower is painted entirely in black and the former president is seen piercing through the screen with blue laser eyes." Dark MAGA supporters are reportedly rooting for a ruthless version of Trump to take form and carry out revenge against his enemies who defeated him in 2020. The Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET) says the #DarkMAGA hashtag creator's description claims the movement represents "Napoleon, being exiled, and then raising a f****** army to attack Europe to attack the elites." "#DarkMAGA is the aesthetic demand that Trump embrace a harder and more focused approach to the role only he can fill. He was too kindhearted, too forgiving. Dark MAGA demands he learn from his mistakes," wrote another Twitter user.
Joan Biskupic

There was a little seen warm moment between Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas last November 1, just before the Supreme Court heard arguments on Texas’ abortion ban. Roberts announced that 30 years ago on that exact date, a ceremonial investiture for Thomas had been held. Thomas, sitting to Roberts’ right, beamed and slung his arm over the chief’s shoulder. That collegiality in the courtroom, filled with only a few dozen spectators because of Covid-19 protocols, has vanished. The two justices are now engaged in an epic struggle over a new abortion case that could mean the end of Roe v. Wade nationwide and unsettle the public image of the court. Last week at a Dallas conference, Thomas took a surprising, public jab at Roberts. Thomas has long touted the good relations inside the court and avoided public criticism of colleagues. He might not always have embraced his colleagues, but he avoided letting any enmity slip. Thomas last week recalled the court atmosphere before 2005, when Roberts joined, and said, “We actually trusted each other. We may have been a dysfunctional family, but we were a family, and we loved it.” Thomas’ blunt remarks suggest new antagonism toward Roberts and added to the uncertainty regarding the ultimate ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, expected by the end of June.
Bill Chappell

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is hitting back at an accusation of sexual misconduct, saying a news article alleging that he propositioned a flight attendant on a private plane is false and politically motivated. The denial comes after Insider published portions of a declaration with a woman who says Musk exposed himself to her friend and improperly touched her in 2016, when the woman's friend worked as a flight attendant on SpaceX's fleet of corporate jets. The woman says Musk asked her friend to perform sex acts in exchange for him buying her a horse. Earlier, the flight attendant had reportedly been encouraged to learn how to give massages.

SpaceX reportedly paid the employee for her silence
The flight attendant filed a sexual misconduct claim against Musk, and SpaceX paid her $250,000 in 2018 as part of a settlement that's bound by non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses, Insider reported. Musk defended himself on Twitter — the platform he's in the process of buying — saying late Thursday, "for the record, those wild accusations are utterly untrue."
Associated Press

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Dozens of prominent conservatives from Europe, the United States and elsewhere gathered Thursday in Hungary as the American Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, was held in Europe for the first time. The two-day conference reflects a deepening of ties between the American right wing and the autocratic government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The burgeoning alliance with Orbán has led some U.S. commentators to warn of American conservatives allegedly embracing anti-democratic tactics. “Orbánization,” it’s been called. During his 12 years in power, Orbán, has generated controversy in the European Union for rolling back of democratic institutions under what he calls an “illiberal democracy,” but garnered the admiration of some segments of the American right for his tough stance on immigration and LGBTQ issues and his rejection of liberal pluralism. The burgeoning alliance with Orbán has led some U.S. commentators to warn of American conservatives allegedly embracing anti-democratic tactics. “Orbánization,” it’s been called. During his 12 years in power, Orbán, has generated controversy in the European Union for rolling back of democratic institutions under what he calls an “illiberal democracy,” but garnered the admiration of some segments of the American right for his tough stance on immigration and LGBTQ issues and his rejection of liberal pluralism.
The court filing describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.”
By Kyle Cheney

John Eastman, the attorney who architected Donald Trump’s last-ditch legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election, revealed Friday that he routinely communicated with Trump either directly or via “six conduits” during the chaotic weeks that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In a late-night court filing urging a federal judge to maintain the confidentiality of his work for Trump, Eastman provided the clearest insight yet into the blizzard of communications between Trump, his top aides, his campaign lawyers and the army of outside attorneys who were working to help reverse the outcome in a handful of states won by Joe Biden. The filing also describes the direct role of Trump himself in developing strategy, detailing “two hand-written notes from former President Trump about information that he thought might be useful for the anticipated litigation.” Those notes are among the documents Eastman is seeking to shield via attorney-client privilege. Eastman said he would also speak directly with Trump by phone throughout his legal challenges to the election. Eastman described these contacts and records as part of an effort to prevent the Jan. 6 select committee from accessing 600 emails that describe his efforts to build Trump’s legal gambit to reverse the 2020 election outcome — and, when that failed, urge state legislatures to simply overturn the results themselves. He argues that the documents are protected by attorney-client and attorney work product privileges that Congress has no business probing, even as the panel investigates the circumstances that led a mob of Trump supporters to attack the Capitol.
Kelly Weill | The Daily Beast

Aconspiracy-peddling county clerk claimed sinister election malfeasance in her home district. But surveillance footage reveals it was her own staff bumbling with computers. Tina Peters, clerk of Mesa County, Colorado is currently facing 10 charges related to allegations that she and a colleague stole a local man’s identity and used it to break into voting equipment in the clerk’s office. Peters allegedly leaked voting data to conspiracy theorists, catapulting her to stardom in the Stop The Steal movement. Peters says the data reveals election tampering in the 2020 presidential election—claims that elections experts have repeatedly dismissed. In a Thursday hearing, Mesa County’s district attorney dismantled Peters’ core claims, with help from surveillance footage from inside her own office. The Thursday hearing came in response to a March report, prepared on behalf of Peters’ legal team. The report claims that several actions on Mesa County election machines could only have been performed by nefarious outside actors manipulating the county’s voting machines from afar. That’s not true, District Attorney Dan Rubinstein showed during the hearing. The report took issue with an election database logging 10 batches of ballots within 47 seconds (“physically impossible,” the document reads). The document claims that “Mesa County election clerks were unaware of these batch timestamps, or any issue that could explain them.” The supposed issue “demonstrates this manipulation of ballots,” by outside forces, the report alleges. But surveillance footage, revealed during the hearing, shows Mesa County staffers easily logging those same batches of ballots within 47 seconds. None appear to blink at what the report described as a physically impossible stunt of data-entry.
Emma Colton | Reuters

Ethan Crumbley, the Michigan teenager accused of opening fire at his high school in November, allegedly wrote that he hoped the massacre would get President Biden impeached, new records show. "Hopefully my shooting will cause Biden to get impeached," 15-year-old Crumbley allegedly wrote in a journal entry disclosed in a court filing Wednesday, the Detroit Free Press reported. Lawyers for Crumbley's parents, who have also been charged in the case, made the disclosure as they try to prevent their son's journal, web searches on shootings and text messages to a friend from being admitted as evidence to their trial slated for later this year. James and Jennifer Crumbley, who are facing involuntary manslaughter charges, are worried that politics might affect their chances at a fair trial, the Detroit Free Press reported. Prosecutors argue the parents failed to intervene and get their son mental health assistance, and instead purchased a gun for him that was allegedly used in the shooting.
Jeff Cohen

Three years ago, we helped write a report for RootsAction.org targeting 15 corporate Democrats in Congress who deserved to be primaried. We called the report "Bad Blues." A common reaction back then was that those establishment politicians were too strong and entrenched to be defeated. On Tuesday, yet another "Bad Blue" apparently went down to defeat — with Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, a seven-term incumbent, running way behind community activist Jamie McLeod-Skinner in the slowly tallied Democratic primary. Schrader is not the first "Bad Blue" on our list to face defeat by a progressive challenger. And he's unlikely to be the last. He heavily outspent McLeod-Skinner — thanks to lavish funding from Big Pharma and other corporate PACs — but was out-organized on the ground. McLeod-Skinner called him "the Joe Manchin of the House." The current vote count indicates that constituents in that district in the Portland suburbs and on Oregon's central coast will no longer be represented by a Democrat who obstructs progressive initiatives on Capitol Hill, such as drug pricing reform and Build Back Better. (Despite his history of blocking key Democratic priorities, Schrader was endorsed in the primary by both President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)
C.C. McCandless

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KNWA/KFTA) - An Oklahoma Republican candidate running for a U.S. Senate seat has promised to disestablish reservations in the state if he is elected. Alex Gray, a former staffer in the Trump White House administration, is seeking to fill the seat that will be vacated by 87-year-old Sen. Jim Inhofe’s upcoming retirement. Gray is one of ten Republicans running in the special election primary that will be held on June 28. Justices to hear Oklahoma appeal in tribal jurisdiction case. Gray voiced his views in a series of social media posts following a May 6 radio interview during which he made it clear that he planned to disestablish the reservations created by a Supreme Court of the United States ruling on his “very first day as a US Senator.”
Did Biden hurt Elon Musk feelings because he did not speak about Tesla. Sorry Biden hurt your feelings Elon Musk it is the Republicans who are the party of hate and insurrection.

Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff

In the weeks since Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his gambit to acquire Twitter, he’s grown comfortable voicing partisan political views—usually on the social media platform he covets—including insults aimed at California, President Joe Biden and “the libs.” Musk now plans to vote Republican, he says—joining a party that derided him in the past as a “crony capitalist” who benefited from Democratic policies but now sees him as an ally. “California used to be the land of opportunity, and it’s a beautiful state,” Musk said during a video appearance at this week’s All In Summit in Miami. He then listed factors he says would make it impossible now to build a plant in the Golden State such as Tesla’s massive new Austin-based Giga Texas factory. “California's gone from a land of opportunity to the land of taxes, over-regulation and litigation,” the Tesla CEO added. “This is not a good situation, and really, there's got to be like a serious cleaning out of the pipes in California.” For years, as he built Tesla from a moonshot startup into the world’s dominant electric-vehicle company, Musk courted Democrats in California, where most of Tesla’s customers live, and nationally. He and his company benefited from the party’s policy and environmental priorities—especially electric-vehicle subsidies—which helped Tesla’s customer base grow. In recent months, both before and since he began his pursuit of Twitter, Musk appeared to veer to the right—for example, crossing swords with Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren over their proposals to raise taxes on billionaires and lobbing insults at Biden for failing to include him at White House EV events.
Las Vegas Sun

No one knows better than Nevadans when it’s time to put our cards on the table. The Editorial Board, and Nevadans as a whole, are facing an agonizing problem. We have endorsed Republicans in the past and might do so again in the future. Yet as we survey the field of Republican candidates across the state, we are struggling to identify those who are not an active threat to American democracy or the institutions of government that have sustained our republic for 250 years. Those are the stakes here for the GOP. For Nevada. For our voters. Following his loss in the 2020 election, President Donald Trump told the Big Lie – that the election had been stolen from him by cheaters, frauds and a country hell-bent on keeping him out of office. Despite countless investigations and audits, no significant fraud or electoral irregularities were ever discovered. But the words had been spoken. The lie was told. Two months later, on one of the darkest days in U.S. history, we learned just how far the lie had traveled and just how important it might be. Following a rally at the White House, a violent insurrection took hold at the U.S. Capitol with the goal of overthrowing the duly elected government of the United States and stopping the peaceful transition of power. At least seven people died in connection with the attack, according to a congressional report, including three police officers who were simply doing their job.
By Bob Brigham | Raw Story

Russian leader Vladimir Putin grew frustrated with Donald Trump's inability to understand foreign policy issues, his former top National Security Council advisor on the country said. Fiona Hill explained the dynamics during a Tuesday Chicago Council on Global Affairs event. Business Insider reports, "One of the reasons Putin invaded Ukraine with President Joe Biden in the White House is because he expected the US to 'sue for peace' and thought it would be better to deal with Biden than trying to negotiate with someone like Trump, who the Russian leader had 'to explain everything to all the time," said Hill, who served as the top Russia advisor on the National Security Council under Trump." Hill currently serves as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
David Jackson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Donald Trump-style Republicans in more than 30 states are pushing new laws that basically would make it easier for them to steal future elections, according to a new report provided to USA TODAY by a group of voting rights organizations. "This trend increases the risk of a crisis in which the outcome of an election could be decided contrary to the will of the people," said the report compiled by three organizations: States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy, and Law Forward. Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser with the States United Democracy Center and one of the authors of the report, described the efforts as "election subversion," and called the idea a "new and dangerous attack on democracy." With 50 proposals passed since the organizations started tracking them at the start of 2021, Bassetti said that "systematic election subversion like we have found is really new." The 2022 edition of an annual report – entitled "A Democracy Crisis In The Making" – said proponents are pursuing election subversion through five methods:  Awarding state legislatures the power to award electoral votes; authorizing post-election "audits" that could be partisan in nature; giving partisan lawmakers and appointed officials more powers over election operations; placing "unworkable burdens" on election administrators; and intimidating election officials with the threat of criminal penalties for certain actions.
Did Biden hurt Elon Musk feelings because he did not speak about Tesla. Sorry Biden hurt your feelings Elon Musk it is the Republicans who are the party of hate and insurrection.

Harper Lambert | TheWrap

Elon Musk has renounced the Democratic Party and says in his latest tweet he will now vote Republican. Despite supporting the Democrats in the past "because they were (mostly) the kindness party," the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted Wednesday, "they have become the party of divison & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican." Musk, whose takeover of Twitter is now up in the air, finished off the tweet with a jab at his former party: "Now watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold … " he wrote, punctuating the sentence with a popcorn emoji.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has pushed the racist “great replacement theory” on television more than 400 times. But after the conspiracy theory was cited by the Buffalo shooting suspect in his online manifesto, Carlson now insists that he does not know what the conspiracy is and that “the left” is responsible for pushing it. In this special report, MSNBC’s Ari Melber calls Carlson out for his hypocrisy, pointing to footage from Carlson’s own show as evidence, and highlights the double standard in his reporting of incidents of gun violence.
Colin Kalmbacher

Adiscovery hearing in a long-running lawsuit accusing former President Donald Trump and two of his adult children of promoting a multi-level marketing scheme resulted in a series of small victories for the plaintiffs on Wednesday–even as the Trumps’ attorneys repeatedly protested the sweeping nature of those requests. “The amended complaint uses a broad stroke,” attorney Clifford S. Robert said, arguing that the type of information the plaintiffs are trying to obtain from the Eric Trump Foundation is not line with the current and “narrow” nature of the case. First filed anonymously in 2018, the lawsuit alleged that the Trump Corporation promoted ACN Opportunity, LLC, which does business as the American Communications Network, through various events, publications, up to and including appearances on the 45th president’s former NBC game show, The Celebrity Apprentice. Moreover, the plaintiffs alleged, ACN was actually a fraudulent “get-rich-quick scheme” that violated various state consumer protection laws and ultimately “conned” several victims out of their money.
By Bob Brigham | Raw Story

Citing the suspension of Rudy Giuliani's law license by the state of New York, an activist organization seeks to have Sen. Ted Cruz disbarred over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. "The complaint against Mr. Cruz, filed by a group called the 65 Project, focuses on baseless assertions by Mr. Cruz about widespread voting fraud in the weeks between Election Day in 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, as well as his participation in lawsuits protesting the results in Pennsylvania," The New York Times reported Wednesday. "The 65 Project’s advisers include the Hillary Clinton ally David Brock and Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative and former Republican who worked on the Ken Starr special prosecution team investigating the Clintons. The 65 Project was formed to hold accountable lawyers involved in a series of lawsuits seeking to undermine President Biden’s victory in 2020." The complaint argued, "just as Mr. Giuliani has been disciplined for his conduct, so should Mr. Cruz." The complaint also noted a case involving "coup memo" author John Eastman.
By Jay Root and Taylor Goldenstein, Austin Bureau

The state police made him do it. That’s the excuse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gives on his Texas ethics disclosures in place of revealing, as required by law, the addresses of properties he owns in Austin and College Station. “Redacted for security purposes on request of TX DPS,” the second-term Republican has written on every disclosure form since he began work as attorney general. There are two problems with that statement: Nothing in the law allows him to refuse to provide the addresses, and none of the parties involved — the Department of Public Safety, Texas Ethics Commission or even Paxton’s own office — could produce any records proving such a request was ever made. “The department doesn’t have any record of making that request,” DPS spokesman Travis Considine said. An attorney general’s office spokesman and Paxton’s campaign spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. State Sen. Angela Paxton, his wife, who has included the same message on her own reports, also could not be reached. The ethics commission is barred from releasing the Paxtons' home address in McKinney to the public. He provides that address to the agency annually. It’s unclear, however, why the Paxtons wouldn’t disclose the addresses of their other properties.
ABC News

As Democrats have ratcheted up condemnation of "replacement theory" in the wake of Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, some Republicans on Capitol Hill have shied away from rejecting the racist idea that some members of their own party have espoused. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked repeatedly about his views of "replacement theory," a conspiracy theory that holds that Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with undocumented immigrants and people of color in order to win elections. He repeatedly avoided denouncing it outright. McConnell was asked whether he, as the party leader, had a responsibility to speak out against the theory, which authorities say was adopted by the 18-year-old white man accused of killing 10 Black people at a local food market. He responded by denouncing the actions of the suspect, calling him a "deranged young man," but making no mention of "replacement theory." Pressed again by reporters on whether the Republican Party is obligated to denounce the theory, McConnell condemned racism generally. "Look -- racism of any sort is abhorrent in America and ought to be stood up to by everybody, both Republicans, Democrats, all Americans," McConnell said.
Buffalo gunman is suspected of posting a 180-page racist diatribe in which he repeatedly referenced the extremist conspiracy theory
Ed Pilkington

Why are we talking about the ‘great replacement’ theory? On Saturday, a white man armed with an AR-15-style rifle entered a supermarket in Buffalo in New York state and killed 10 people, almost all of whom were African American. The gunman is suspected of having posted a 180-page racist diatribe in which he repeatedly referenced the extremist conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement”. The Buffalo shooter drew heavily on the white supremacist rantings of the gunman in the 2019 massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed. His similarly hate-filled statement was titled “The Great Replacement”. What is ‘great replacement’ theory and how did its racist lies spread in the US? Why are we talking about the ‘great replacement’ theory? At its heart, the theory claims falsely that white people are being stripped of their power through the demographic rise of communities of color, driven by immigration. The lie has been integral to many of the most horrifying recent acts of white supremacist violence in the US. Far-right protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to the killing of a woman, chanted “You will not replace us”. Replacement theory featured in the rants of mass shooters at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 in which 11 people were murdered; a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in which 23 were killed in 2019; and a synagogue in Poway, California, the same year in which one person died.
by Dawn Megli

The heavily armed gunman who opened fire Saturday in a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store — and is suspected of killing 10 victims in a racially motivated attack — had the number 14 written on his semiautomatic rifle. It is a reference to the popular white supremacist slogan known as the “14 Words” and a call to action to defend the white race. As a reporter for a weekly community newspaper in Thousand Oaks, I have become all too familiar with the 14 Words this year because white supremacists have been demonstrating in my town. A group that calls itself White Lives Matter unfurled its hateful message from the Borchard overpass on the 101 Freeway in February and March. Unlike the Buffalo shooter, they didn’t come to kill. They came to recruit, law enforcement officials said. At my church on Sunday, the pastor prayed for those mourning in Buffalo since they had joined the grim fraternity of cities that, like ours, now know the unspeakable horror and inescapable grief of a mass shooting. On Nov. 7, 2018, a Marine veteran opened fire at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, killing 12. Our town still weeps. The White Lives Matter demonstrators, men hiding behind face masks, used drones to capture footage of their actions as they unfurled a banner over the 101 Freeway and performed training exercises in a nearby public park. Some wore shirts from the Rise Above Movement, a far-right street-fighting gang that spreads white supremacist propaganda. The footage filmed in Thousand Oaks was used in recruiting videos posted online.
by Amanda Marcotte

The bodies of the mostly-Black victims of the white nationalism-inspired mass shooting in Buffalo weren't even cold on Saturday before the folks at Fox News identified the real victims here: White conservatives. As I predicted they would on Sunday, the whining from right-wing media has since reached ear-piercing levels of shrill in response to mainstream media correctly pointing out that Republicans and their media have been hyping the "great replacement" conspiracy theory that shooter Payton Gendron used to justify the killing of 10 people. But this isn't just an attempt to evade accountability. Fox News pundits are now exploiting the Buffalo shooting to draw their viewers further into white nationalism. Network personalities are romanticizing the hateful ideology that allegedly inspired a massacre as a dangerous truth that the "elite" are trying to suppress. This shooting really illustrates how Fox News has created a victim narrative for its viewers that is so potent that no event is so horrible or violent — including a deadly insurrection in the Capitol or the mass murder of innocent people — that can't be weaponized by the propaganda machine to further radicalize Republican voters.
Zaron Burnett III

The mass violence of white supremacists often gets written off as evil acts perpetrated by ‘lone wolves,’ but the history of white power movements reveals a coordinated agenda and international network of hate. When the police arrived, 22-year-old white supremacist Brandon Russell was seated on the curb outside of his apartment in Tampa, Florida. His head was in his hands as tears streamed down his face. The horror of what he’d just witnessed haunted him; the founder of the “Atomwaffen Division” neo-Nazi cell had returned to the home he shared with three other young neo-Nazis after a weekend away in May 2017. Two of his roommates had been shot dead by his third roommate, 18-year-old Devon Arthurs.  The Tampa police searched the apartment. In the unit’s garage space, the detectives found a cache of weapons and supplies for a bomb-making operation, including “sacks of explosive precursors,” radioactive materials and two Geiger counters. In the apartment, the police found a copy of Mein Kampf, the white power novel The Turner Diaries and a framed photograph of Timothy McVeigh. For young white supremacists, these three items are an unholy trilogy — a starter kit for racial violence. They’re also physical proof that the young white supremacists typically labeled “lone wolves” are, in fact, part of a highly motivated, loosely organized international network who all share the same hateful agenda.
By Travis Gettys  | Raw Story

The Department of Justice has asked for transcripts of interviews conducted by the House select committee, and a legal expert explained how that shows the criminal investigation of Jan. 6 has moved out into the open. The pace of the DOJ probe of the insurrection has reportedly frustrated the White House, but MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade told "Morning Joe" the request for evidence collected by congressional investigators shows federal authorities have widened the scope of their criminal investigation. "I think this is a very significant development," said McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney. "It tells us that the Justice Department is looking at more than just the physical attack that occurred on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, but the full scope of all of the things that the Jan. 6 committee has been investigating that includes aides to Mike Pence, we've talked about the pressure that Donald Trump put on him to stop the certification. It includes DOJ high-level officials who were pressured by Trump to say that there was fraud in the election." McQuade doesn't believe their ongoing investigation has expanded, but she said the request does signal a new phase to the criminal probe.
Alexander Bolton

Aracially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo is putting new pressure on Democrats to consider gun-control legislation — but once again centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is emerging as a problem. Manchin says the pared-down Manchin-Toomey proposal to expand background checks, which he helped negotiate in hope of getting support from the National Rifle Association in 2013, is the only reform that has a chance of passing the 50-50 Senate, undercutting Democrats’ hopes of passing broader legislation. While more ambitious proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines never had a chance of getting 60 votes in the Senate, Democrats hoped to at least unify their caucus behind the background checks legislation passed by the House last year. But Manchin on Tuesday said his old proposal negotiated with the retiring GOP Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa.) that could expand background checks for commercial transactions is the best option.  “I support the Manchin-Toomey, I’ve always done that,” he said. “The Manchin-Toomey is the one. I think if you can’t get that one, then why try to do something just for basically voting for the sake of voting?”  
Anders Anglesey

Ahead of a Monday anti-abortion rally in front of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C., right-wing Pastor Greg Locke told his Tennessee congregation "you ain't seen an insurrection yet," evoking the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Global Vision Bible Church pastor made the provocative statement during a sermon in Mt. Juliet, near Nashville, on Sunday. During the sermon, the pro-Trump pastor railed against Democrats who he said could not be Christians if they supported abortion rights. Locke will attend the Rally for Life on the Supreme Court steps Tuesday amid the controversy surrounding the possibility that the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling could be overturned in the near future. Should that happen, several states would end access to abortion in most circumstances. He will be joined by Sean Feucht, who has previously led anti-Disney rallies with his Christian activist group, Hold the Line. The pastor said in a video shared on his church's website: "If you vote Democrat, I don't even want you around this church. You can get out. You can get out you demon. You can get out you baby butchering election thief. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don't care how mad that makes you. You can get as p***ed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. They are God-denying demons that butcher babies and hate this nation."
’I can’t find it either. Dammit! It might be fake,’ he said after ranting about the untrue story
Jacob Stolworthy

Joe Rogan is being heavily mocked for a clip in which he realised he’d shared a “fake” news story on his podcast. In an episode of Spotify’s Joe Rogan Experience released on 12 May, the commentator announced: “I read something briefly and I didn’t get into the article.” He then claimed that Australia is “trying to pass a bill that would outlaw you growing your own food”.
Lee Moran

Back in 2018, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was full of indignation after “Saturday Night Live” comedian Pete Davidson poked fun at Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (R-Texas) eye patch, which the congressman has worn since sustaining an injury on active military service in Afghanistan. Now? Not so much. This week, Carlson called former Navy SEAL Crenshaw “eye patch McCain” after the lawmaker said sending military aid to Ukraine amid the Russia invasion is nothing to do with the U.S. baby formula shortage. Carlson’s dig referenced the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was also long-term injured in combat. “You hurl juvenile insults when you know you’ve lost the debate,” Crenshaw responded to Carlson’s attack. Progressive PAC MeidasTouch cut Carlson’s comments together on Tuesday and the evidence of the blowhard’s hypocrisy is now going viral:
Jon Skolnik

Last month, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., went on Fox News to deliver a diatribe about the apparent ills of open borders, a policy that President Biden has never supported but was nevertheless cited by the senator as an attempt to "remake the demographics of America." But now, in the wake of a deadly mass shooting carried out by white supremacist who echoed a similar sentiment, Johnson's comments are coming back to bite him, with many commentators arguing that the senator supports a racist conspiracy theory that's likely to lead to more violence in the months to come. The uproar stems from a shooting this weekend in Buffalo, New York, where ten people were killed and three were injured as part of a racially-motivated attack on a predominantly Black neighborhood in the city. Prior to the attack, the 18-year old killer, Payton Gendron, published a 180-page manifesto online, making multiple references to the "Great Replacement," a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory alleging that the Democrats are attempting to loosen borders in order to replace the white electorate with more pliant citizens from the Third World.
Ron Dicker

Fox News host Mark Levin blatantly supported the “great replacement theory” Tuesday on his radio show, joining colleague Tucker Carlson and top House Republican Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in pushing a racist conspiracy embraced by the gunman charged in the Buffalo, New York, mass killing. Carlson, denounced by political leaders for promoting the baseless idea hundreds of times on his prime time show, on Tuesday attempted to dance around the controversy by declaring he wasn’t sure what it was. Levin took the direct route. The theory stokes white fear by asserting that elite Democrats and others are scheming to replace white Americans with people of color through immigration or to undermine white influence in other ways. It has gained footing among conservatives, including several mainstream Republican Senate candidates. The accused Buffalo shooter repeatedly cited the white supremacist theory in a 180-page racist screed. “The ‘great replacement’ ideology is indeed a policy of the Democrat policy,” Levin said. “They have celebrated it. They’ve spoken of it. Obama has, Biden has.” Levin, the host of “Life, Liberty and Levin” on Fox News, praised Stefanik for her leadership and for her ad asserting that “illegal immigrants ... will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
Fox News and Republican lawmakers are up in arms that the Biden administration is caring for babies at the border during a formula shortage
By WILLIAM VAILLANCOURT

There’s a baby formula shortage in the United States. Republican lawmakers and conservative media members are taking frustration out on immigrants. Fox News hosts have spent the past 24 hours raising hell over immigrant babies at the U.S.-Mexico border receiving formula, arguing that it should instead be distributed to Americans first. “[For] American families there’s a shortage, but if you’re a migrant, don’t worry because Uncle Sam has a stash of that,” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy said Friday morning.
Ryan Bort

Tucker Carlson has long promoted the idea of the “great replacement,” a racist conspiracy theory holding that white people are being systematically replaced by immigrants. The theory was present throughout the 180-page manifesto of the teenager who killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday, leading to renewed scrutiny of the mega-popular Fox News host. Carlson addressed that scrutiny on Monday night, essentially arguing that anyone espousing white supremacist views should be able to do so without fear of criticism. “Because a mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud,” he said. “That’s what they’re telling you. That’s what they’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but Saturday’s massacre gives them a pretext and a justification.”
Candace McDuffie

The murder of 10 people—who were mostly Black—at a Buffalo grocery store Saturday was a deplorable act of violence against folks who are already incredibly vulnerable. Payton Gendron—the 18-year-old white male terrorist responsible for the gruesome killings—drove over 100 miles to gun down innocent victims in a Black neighborhood. He is not a lone wolf or someone who suffered from mental health issues. Gendron is a self-identified white supremacist who carefully calculated how to slaughter Black people to uphold an organized system of power. The fact is he justified his heinous actions through rhetoric found on right wing media platforms. Through mouthpieces like Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Through people like commentator Ben Shapiro. Through political figures like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and Governor Ron DeSantis. Through organizations like the Republican party. Through presidents like Donald Trump. Their racist ideologies incite racist violence—which is why they all need to be stopped. Most notably, “white replacement theory,” or the fear that white people are in danger of becoming this country’s minority, is the foundational framework of conservative pundits. And it’s the reason mass shootings—like the ones in Charleston, Pittsburgh and El Paso—are becoming more and more frequent.
Colby Hall

Tucker Carlson has been the subject of many cable news segments after a deadly hate crime shooting in Buffalo that left 10 people dead. Turns out the shooter left a document that espoused the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, something Carlson has repeatedly advanced on his show, which happens to be the top-rated program in all of cable news. Consequently, Carlsons’ first segment following the tragedy was the very definition of newsworthy. It is telling that Carlson decided the best use of all this additional attention was to argue for his right to spew — and his viewers’ right to hear — hate speech. No really. That is exactly what he did. Furthermore, his takeaway from this horrible racially-motivated hate crime? His audience is the real victim. Let me state here that I do not believe Tucker Carlson is to blame for this horrible tragedy. The responsibility lies solely with the unhinged individual who pulled the trigger while streaming the horrors on Twitch. That said, Carlson’s “replacement theory” conspiracy theories, and the existential threat he says they pose to “legacy Americans”? That is deeply irresponsible rhetoric that is entirely relevant. Not necessarily causal, but a corollary influence. Carlson opened his show by noting the weekend of violence, eventually pivoting to the Buffalo tragedy and making clear just how opposed he allegedly is to racism, and identity politics broadly.
By Maegan Vazquez and Kate Sullivan, CNN

(CNN) President Joe Biden on Tuesday did not hesitate to call the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, an act of domestic terrorism, condemning the racist ideology of the suspected shooter. "White supremacy is a poison. It's a poison ... running through our body politic," Biden said, adding that silence is "complicity." "And it's been allowed to grow and fester right before our eyes," he continued. "No more, no more. We need to say as clearly and as forcefully as we can that the ideology of White supremacy has no place in America. None." He added, "In America, evil will not win, I promise you. Hate will not prevail. White supremacy will not have the last word. The evil did come to Buffalo and it's come to all too many places, manifested in gunmen who massacred innocent people in the name of hateful and perverse ideology, rooted in fear and racism. It's taken so much." Speaking at the close of his visit to the city, the President remembered each of the victims of the shooting at a grocery store frequented by a largely Black clientele, becoming visibly emotional as he described how they were remembered by their families and their community.
Daniel Arkin

Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is facing intense scrutiny from extremism experts, media watchdogs and progressive activists who say there is a link between the top-rated host’s “great replacement” rhetoric and the apparent mindset of the suspect in the weekend’s deadly rampage in Buffalo, New York. The white suspect accused of killing 10 people and wounding three others Saturday at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood apparently wrote a “manifesto” espousing the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory — elements of which Carlson has pushed on his weeknight show. The theory baselessly holds that a cabal of Jewish people and Democratic elites are plotting to “replace” white Americans with people of color through immigration policies, higher birth rates and other social transformations. The idea circulated on the far-right fringes before moving to the mainstream of conservative media. “Tucker Carlson has made comments that directly reference this conspiracy theory on his show,” said Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks white supremacy, hate groups and extremism.
dlevinthal@insider.com (Dave Levinthal,C. Ryan Barber)

Federal regulators have deadlocked on a complaint that Donald Trump's 2020 White House campaign laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in spending through corporate entities closely tied to the ex-president and his family, according to a ruling document obtained by Insider. The ruling by the Federal Election Commission, which the agency has not yet made public, does not offer reasons for the bipartisan body's decision on an arrangement detailed in late 2020 by Insider. The six-member commission was "equally divided" on several legal questions it considered, according to a letter it sent Monday to the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which had filed a formal complaint. Had the FEC ruled against the Trump campaign, Trump's committee could have faced significant fines. The Campaign Legal Center alleged that the Trump campaign routed funds through two firms — American Made Media Consultants and Parscale Strategy — to conceal its spending in the 2020 presidential election. The Trump campaign, it further contended, had failed to keep an "arm's length relationship" with American Made Media Consultants, citing Insider's reporting in December 2020 that Jared Kushner, the then-president's son-in-law and advisor, helped create a shell company that secretly paid the president's family members and spent $617 million in reelection cash. In the complaint, the Campaign Legal Center said Trump's campaign funneled millions of dollars to American Made Media Consultants and Parscale Strategy, which then paid sub-vendors.
Vivian Kane

This weekend, an 18-year-old white man who self-identifies as a white supremacist drove to a grocery store in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, New York and shot 13 people, killing 10 of them. The man posted a 180-page manifesto online, in which he wrote at length about a “replacement” theory—a common white supremacist ideology that white people in the U.S. and worldwide are being “replaced” by growing immigrant, Jewish, and POC populations. They refer to this as “white genocide,” and many believe that, in the U.S., changing demographics are the result of a deliberate political ploy to increase Democratic voters. If that sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because what was once a fringe extremist conspiracy theory has become the centerpiece of Tucker Carlson’s nightly narrative. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times published a three-part story about Tucker Carlson’s rising influence as he’s become one of the most dangerous people in America, working every night to normalize white supremacist ideologies: Last spring, Mr. Carlson caused an uproar when he promoted on air the notion of the “great replacement” — a racist conspiracy theory, once relegated to the far-right fringe, that Western elites are importing “obedient” immigrant voters to disempower the native-born. The Anti-Defamation League called for his firing, noting that such thinking had helped fuel a string of terrorist attacks. But this was hardly something new for Mr. Carlson. In more than 400 episodes, the Times analysis found, he has amplified the idea that a cabal of elites want to force demographic change through immigration.
Matt Shuham

The white supremacist mass shooter who targeted Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo Saturday, after writing in a manifesto that he was doing so because whites were being purposefully replaced by people of color, was acting on a rich vein of conservative thought. Right-wing pundits and politicians have for years accumulated money and power with the message that a liberal elite was systematically “replacing” white Americans in order to wrest power from Americas’ historic racial majority. The notion is commonly referred to as “great replacement theory,” “white replacement theory” or “white genocide,” and it’s been inspiring shooters and bolstering Republicans for years. After the shooting, some major proponents of that assertion doubled down. Others claimed the attack was a staged “false flag” or the work of shadowy government insiders, a typical dodge.

‘It Is A FACT’
One of the highest-profile Republicans to voice a version of the replacement theory is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives. Last year, Stefanik said in a campaign ad that Democrats wishing to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants wanted to “overthrow our current electorate.” The policy amounted to a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” Stefanik said.
ABC News

The deadly shooting at a church in Laguna Woods, California, on Sunday, was motivated by the political tension between China and Taiwan, authorities said Monday. One person was killed and five were wounded, four critically, in the shooting inside the Geneva Presbyterian Church, the Orange County Sheriff's Office. All victims are adults and range in age from 66 to 92 years old, the sheriff's office said. A group of churchgoers detained the suspect and hogtied his legs with an extension cord and confiscated two handguns from him before more people could be shot, according to Jeff Hallock, Undersheriff at the Orange County Sheriff's Office. "That group of churchgoers displayed what we believed exceptional heroism, heroism and bravery in interfering or intervening to stop the suspect," Hallock said. The two victims taken to Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, California, are now in good condition, the hospital said Monday.
Zachary Leeman

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas targeted the media during a Q & A on Friday, joking that there is a potential he could leave the court one day — on one condition. During a conference in Dallas, Thomas blasted the opinion draft leak recently published by Politico, which suggested Roe v. Wade could potentially be overturned this year, leading to numerous protests of conservative judges attached to the opinion. Thomas said the leak fundamentally changed the court and the public’s perception of Supreme Court Justices. At another point during his chat, the conservative judge said he’d leave the court as soon as he starts doing his job “as poorly” as the media does theirs. “One of the things I say in response to the media … especially early on, about the way I did my job, I said, ‘I will absolutely leave the court when I do my job as poorly as you do yours — and that was meant as a compliment, really,” Thomas said. Laughing, the Supreme Court Justice said, “It really is getting to be mean.”
Jake Johnson

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday called Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema out by name for undercutting their own party's legislative agenda, including desperately needed action to rein in carbon emissions, reduce income and wealth inequality, and protect abortion rights. "It should not be a head-scratcher," Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, told MSNBC's Chuck Todd after the host expressed confusion as to why congressional Democrats ended up with nothing to show for months of negotiations on Build Back Better, a central component of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda that proposed billions in spending on climate action and poverty-reducing social programs. The legislative package passed the House in November but died in the Senate due largely to Manchin and Sinema's obstruction. "You've got two members of the Senate, Sen. Manchin and Sen. Sinema, who have sabotaged what the president has been fighting for," Sanders said Sunday.
Alex Hern and Dan Milmo

The Buffalo shooting has focused attention on the role of Twitch, the gaming platform used by the gunman to broadcast a live stream of the massacre, amid renewed calls for tighter regulation of social media platforms. Twitch allows creators, many with millions of followers, to stream themselves playing video games, chatting with fans, or simply going about their daily lives. The Buffalo suspect, a self-confessed white supremacist who allegedly shot 11 Black and two white victims, killing 10 people, in what authorities said was a racially motivated hate crime, used a Twitch channel to livestream the assault from a helmet camera. Amazon-owned Twitch said it took down the video within two minutes of the violence starting, but by that time it was already being shared elsewhere including on Facebook and Twitter. In a statement issued to the New York Times, Angela Hession, Twitch’s vice-president of trust and safety, said the site’s reaction was a “very strong response time considering the challenges of live content moderation, and shows good progress”.
Philip Bump | The Washington Post

Tragedy can be clarifying. The massacre of 10 shoppers and employees at a Tops supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo over the weekend was precisely the sort of extremist violence that authorities have been worried about for years. Late in 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about domestic violent extremism that has been on the rise; when Joe Biden was inaugurated months later, he used his first speech as president to warn of “a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.” Polling from Pew Research Center conducted last month found that a third of Black Americans worried almost every day about being attacked for their race. In other words, both police and potential victims worried about an attack just like this one. What’s clarifying, though, is that what appears to have occurred would at every step until the trigger was pulled have been defended with right-wing rhetoric that has increasingly filtered into mainstream Republican rhetoric. The shooting suspect allegedly purchased a highly regulated firearm in New York, modified it and — seemingly influenced by extremist online rhetoric and espousing a conspiracy theory about race — used the weapon to kill Black people in a heavily Black neighborhood miles from his house. It’s all there: access to guns, unmoderated rhetoric from the Internet, “replacement theory.” Each a focus of fervent advocacy in recent years despite the ways in which their overlap was demonstrably toxic. We can begin with “replacement theory,” the idea that there’s a coordinated effort from elite Americans to replace native-born voters with immigrants to gain an electoral advantage.
Brad Dress

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday condemned the mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y., grocery market over the weekend, calling the attack a “vile act of racist violent extremism.” In a statement, Guterres gave his condolences to the 13 victims of the shooting at Tops Friendly Market, at least 10 of whom were killed. Guterres said he was appalled by the shooting, which authorities are investigating as a hate crime. Eleven of the victims are Black and the gunman allegedly published a racist manifesto online before the shooting. “The Secretary-General condemns in the strongest terms racism in all its forms and discrimination based on race, religion, belief or national origin. We must all work together towards building more peaceful and inclusive societies,” the statement read. The gunman, who was wearing a tactical vest and had briefly livestreamed the shooting on Twitch, surrendered to police. Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, N.Y., was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge Saturday evening. Gendron, who is white, allegedly wrote and published a 180-page manifesto via 4Chan, an online social forum in which he espoused racist ideas and white supremacist ideology including the “great replacement” theory, or a belief that liberals are intentionally replacing white people with minorities in the U.S. for political benefit.
Jenny Jarvie, Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Bored during the early days of the pandemic, Payton Gendron logged on to the 4chan message board website to browse ironic memes and infographics that spread the idea that the white race is going extinct. He was soon lurking on the web’s even more sinister fringes, scrolling through extremist and neo-Nazi sites that peddled conspiracy theories and anti-Black racism. It wasn’t until he spotted a GIF of a man shooting a shotgun through a dark hallway, and then tracked down a livestream of the 2019 killing of 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand, that Gendron appeared to have found his calling: as a virulently racist, copycat mass shooter with a craving for notoriety. The white 18-year-old from Conklin, N.Y., suspected of killing 10 people Saturday in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket, appears to represent a new generation of white supremacists. They are isolated and online, radicalized on internet memes and misinformation, apparently inspired by livestreams to find fame through bloodshed, much of it propelled by convoluted ideas that the white race is under threat from everything from interracial marriage to immigration.
Jon Queally

Amid the outpouring of grief and heartache following Saturday's massacre in Buffalo that left 10 people dead and three wounded, critical observers say the racial animus which evidence shows motivated the killer must be seen in the larger context of a white nationalist mindset that has increasingly broken into the mainstream of the right-wing political movement and Republican Party in recent years. Taken into custody at the scene of the mass shooting at the Tops Market was Payton Gendron, the white 18-year-old male who has charged with murdering the victims. Gendron live-streamed his attack online and also posted a detailed, 180-page document that has been described by those who have reviewed it — including journalists and law enforcement — as a white nationalist manifesto rife with anti-Black racism, antisemitism and conspiracy theories about "white replacement." Amid the outpouring of grief and heartache following Saturday's massacre in Buffalo that left 10 people dead and three wounded, critical observers say the racial animus which evidence shows motivated the killer must be seen in the larger context of a white nationalist mindset that has increasingly broken into the mainstream of the right-wing political movement and Republican Party in recent years. Taken into custody at the scene of the mass shooting at the Tops Market was Payton Gendron, the white 18-year-old male who has charged with murdering the victims. Gendron live-streamed his attack online and also posted a detailed, 180-page document that has been described by those who have reviewed it — including journalists and law enforcement — as a white nationalist manifesto rife with anti-Black racism, antisemitism and conspiracy theories about "white replacement."
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