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House G.O.P. Paralyzed on Day 1 as Right Wing Blocks McCarthy Speakership

Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy

Republicans were deadlocked on Tuesday over who would lead their new majority after Representative Kevin McCarthy of California lost three votes for the top job, as hard-right lawmakers in open revolt dealt their party leader a humiliating setback and prompted a historic struggle on the House floor.

The mutiny, waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who for weeks have held fast to their vow to oppose Mr. McCarthy, paralyzed the House on the first day of Republican rule, delaying the swearing in of hundreds of members of Congress, putting off any legislative work and exposing deep divisions that threaten to make the party’s House majority ungovernable.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

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Charlie Pierce: Kevin McCarthy’s Ambitions Are Going to Take Him to Some Dark Places

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire

Sometime next week, Kevin McCarthy, an amiable (if largely invertebrate) career politician from Bakersfield, California, will offer himself up as human sacrifice to the barbarian tribes of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. 

Remember Richard Harris in the egregious 1970 movie, A Man Called Horse, in which Harris is a British nobleman who joins the Sioux, but not before he completes initiation rites that include being hung up by the thorax with pins? Next week, McCarthy will undergo something similar—except, unlike Harris’ John Morgan, McCarthy also will have to listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene. The arrangement is blatantly unconstitutional as a violation of the Eighth Amendment. It’s cruel and she’s unusual.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

Steve Bannon Wanted To ‘Turn Up The Heat’ After Jan. 6 Violence

Steve Bannon
Steve bannon

Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon had floated the idea of more violence in the days following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to text messages obtained by the House select committee that investigated the attack.

The House Jan. 6 committee released its latest batch of material on Sunday from its investigation into the insurrection and the political players who planned it, including the former president. The committee formally recommended last month that the Justice Department charge Trump with several counts related to the attack, including inciting an insurrection.

One of the witness testimony transcripts the committee released on Monday is that of Alexandra Preate, who served as Bannon’s spokesperson from 2016 to 2020.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Jan. 6 Panel Transcripts Show Gen. Milley Agreed With Pelosi That Trump Was ‘Crazy’

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified last year he agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that former President Donald Trump was “crazy” while he pledged that the country’s nuclear codes were safe during his tenure, according to transcripts of his testimony before lawmakers last year.

The transcript is part of a mass database of evidence released Sunday by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. The documents include detailed accounts from witness interviews, emails between Trump attorneys and text messages from those working in the White House as the former president’s term ended.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin in critical condition after cardiac arrest on field during Monday Night Football

Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed Monday night after making a tackle during the first quarter against the Bengals in Cincinnati, and the game has been postponed, team officials said.

Hamlin, 24, is currently hospitalized in critical condition, Buffalo Bills officials said in a statementposted on Twitter.

“Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in our game versus the Bengals,” the statement said. “His heartbeat was restored on the field and he was transferred to the UC Medical Center for further testing and treatment. He is currently sedated and listed in critical condition.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

McCarthy struggles to clinch support to be House speaker, with hours to go before crucial vote

Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy is still struggling to clinch the necessary support to become the next speaker — less than a day before the new Congress convenes.

McCarthy, who has been the top House Republican since 2019, is backed by a majority of his conference, some of whom say no one else is better for the role. But his long-held aspirations to wield the gavel are being obstructed by a small group of Republicans who say they are intent on withholding their support in exchange for concessions that would limit a speaker’s power — and thus increase the influence of other members.

Five Republicans have outright said they won’t support McCarthy during the vote for speaker on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

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Biden to laud economic wins with McConnell as GOP takes over House

Biden speech flag
Biden speech flag

President Joe Biden will open the new year with a bipartisan show of support to tout one of his major legislative wins, appearing with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky to announce a major project funded by the infrastructure law.

The appearance with McConnell, R-Ky., and other regional leaders from both parties Wednesday signals a dual focus for a White House aiming to stay above the political fray in 2023. The stop, and others like it this week featuring other administration officials across the country, will come a day after the new Republican-led House of Representatives takes power in Washington, kicking off a period of divided government as the 2024 presidential election campaign also begins to take shape.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal prosecutors open investigation into Rep.-elect George Santos over congressional campaign

George Santos
George Santos

Federal prosecutors in New York have opened an investigation into Rep.-elect George Santos, two law enforcement sources confirmed Thursday.

The probe by federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York is at least the second investigation into Santos, a Republican, who acknowledged this week that he had fabricated and “embellished” several claims about his background involving his education and work history.

The investigation is said to be in its very early stages, and it has not zeroed in on any one allegation of wrongdoing yet. The two sourcesconfirmed that prosecutors are examining Santos’ finances, including potential irregularities involving financial disclosures and loans he made to his campaign as he was running for Congress.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump’s tax returns released by House committee show he paid little in taxes

tax

A House committee on Friday made public six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns, which showed he paid relatively little in federal taxes in the years before and during his presidency.

The House Ways and Means Committee had voted to make the thousands of pages of federal returns public in a party-line vote last week, but their release was delayed while staffers redacted sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers from the documents. Friday’s release, the culmination of years of legal wrangling and speculation, included both personal and business records.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Kinzinger says he believes Justice Department ‘will do the right thing’ and charge Trump over Jan. 6

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Sunday that he believes the Justice Department will charge former President Donald Trump after the House Jan. 6 committee concluded its investigation detailing his pressure campaign to overturn the election.

“If this is not a crime, I don’t know what is. If a president can incite an insurrection and not be held accountable, then really there’s no limit to what a president can do or can’t do,” Kinzinger, a member of the committee, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I think the Justice Department will do the right thing. I think he will be charged, and I frankly think he should be,” he continued, pointing to the findings of the committee’s formal report from its 18-month investigation into the deadly Capitol riot in 2021.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: Haiku Review of 2022… Everything Everywhere All at Once

This fuckin’ year, man. Even as shit’s not really that bad, shit just feels like it’s spiraling down into the toilet of our abyssal politics. You can’t turn around without some jagoff screeching about “wokeism” or “groomers” or whatever nonsense word or phrase they’ve come up with to mean “People who make me mad for completely irrational reasons that I probably got from some stupid video.” And every single time we allow ourselves to be even slightly giddy heading down Hope Street, we know that around every corner is Despair, and that motherfucker’s carrying a machete. 
 
We approach 2023 with the prospect that Donald Trump will finally be rooted out from the Republican Party, yet we know that the disease that he unleashed on our nation will not be cured and, in fact, its symptoms will be fostered by the craven DeSantises and Greenes and Noems. We are thrilled that Democrats held the Senate, even expanding their majority, but we know that, come January, the Republican-led House is gonna be a batshit hootenanny of conspiracy theories and vengeance. And Covid is still here and still murdering people, as I know personally. Machete after machete. Dodge one and there’s another about to come at your face.
 

Trump’s tax returns released by House committee after years of legal battles

A House committee made public six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns Friday, the culmination of years of legal wrangling and speculation about what might be contained in the filings.

The House Ways and Means Committee had voted to make the thousands of pages of returns public in a party-line vote last week, but their release was delayed while staffers redacted sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers from the documents.

The panel’s top Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, has called the release of the documents “unprecedented,” and said it will “jeopardize the right of every American to be protected from political targeting by Congress.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Jamie Raskin Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

Rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Rep Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) revealed Wednesday that he’s been diagnosed with cancer and will soon begin treatment.

“After several days of tests, I have been diagnosed with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, which is a serious but curable form of cancer,” he said in a statement.

Raskin, 60, will soon commence an outpatient course of chemo-immunotherapy but expects to be able to work through his treatment.

“Prognosis for most people in my situation is excellent after four months of treatment,” he said. “I expect to be able to work through this period but have been cautioned by my doctors to reduce unnecessary exposure to avoid COVID-19, the flu and other viruses.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Transportation Department will be looking into Southwest flight cancellations, Buttigieg says

Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department will be looking into the Southwest Airlines scheduling system after thousands of canceled flights enraged passengers across the U.S.

Southwest canceled 70% of its flight schedule Monday and Tuesday as it struggles to recover after extreme winter weather and staffing problems.

“This has clearly crossed the line from what’s an uncontrollable weather situation to something that is the airline’s direct responsibility,” Buttigieg said Tuesday in an interview on “NBC Nightly News.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

New York prosecutor looking into Rep.-elect George Santos, citing ‘fabrications and inconsistencies’

George Santos
George Santos

George Santos, the congressman-elect from New York who’s admitted to “embellishing” his résumé, is being investigated by a New York prosecutor.

“The numerous fabrications and inconsistencies associated with Congressman-Elect Santos are nothing short of stunning. The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said in a statement about her fellow Republican on Wednesday. “No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.”

Santos, who made history last month as the first openly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican to be elected to Congress, was the subject of a bombshell investigation The New York Times published this month, which found much of Santos’ background appeared to have been manufactured, including claims that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and had graduated from Baruch College.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate passes $1.7 trillion government funding bill that overhauls U.S. election law

The Senate voted Thursday to pass a $1.7 trillion government funding bill, sending it to the House to avoid a holiday shutdown.

The vote was 68-29 on sweeping legislation that would keep the government funded through next fall and overhaul election laws in an attempt to prevent another Jan. 6. It came after votes on a potpourri of amendments, including landmark workplace protections for pregnant and breastfeeding employees.

The bill also includes nearly $45 billion in aid to Ukraine after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a joint meeting of Congress that U.S. support is “crucial” in helping it fend off Russian aggression. The package includes $9 billion for weapons and more than $15 billion in economic and humanitarian aid.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Cassidy Hutchinson knew she was going to be ‘nuked’ for turning on Trump. She did it anyway.

Cassidy Hutchinson
Cassidy Hutchinson

Cassidy Hutchinson sped out of Washington in the wee hours of the morning while Googling “Watergate” on her phone, frantically looking for some kind of guidance on how to be a whistleblower.

Until that moment, the former Donald Trump White House aide, who would go on to be the star witness of the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, had remained “loyal” and “in the family,” as Trumpworld insiders kept reminding her, according to transcripts of her testimony released Thursday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jan. 6 committee report details the scope of Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

The House Jan. 6 committee on Thursday unveiled its formal report, the final product of its historic 18-month investigation into the deadly attack on the Capitol and former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“[A]fter nearly a year and a half of investigation, I am frightened about the peril our democracy faced. Specifically, I think about what that mob was there to do: to block the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another based on a lie that the election was rigged and tainted with widespread fraud,” Jan. 6 committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in the foreword of the report. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jan. 6 committee approves criminal referrals against Trump for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

The House Jan. 6 committee voted Monday to recommend the Justice Department pursue a batch of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump for his role in an effort to overturn the 2020 election and the fomenting of a deadly mob at the Capitol.

Trump was the first president in American history to be impeached twice. Now, he is also the first president ever to be formally referred by Congress for potential criminal prosecution.

The committee’s final meeting marks the culmination of a sweeping 17-month congressional investigation that included more than 100 subpoenas, interviews with more than 1,200 witnesses and the collection of hundreds of thousands of documents.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Trump lashes out at polls showing Ron DeSantis with a big lead in the 2024 GOP primaries

Former President Donald Trump unloaded Thursday on polling showing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis beating him in a head-to-head matchup for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

“Great polling has just come out on me versus various others, including [President Joe] Biden, but I still have to put up with the same old ‘stuff’ from The Wall Street Journal, which has lost an incalculable amount of influence over the years, and Fox News, whose polls on me have been seriously WRONG from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower” to announce his first run, Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate sends Biden military bill that would lift Covid vaccine mandate for troops and authorize more Ukraine funding

The Senate passed a massive military policy bill Thursday that would direct the Defense Department to lift a Covid vaccination mandate for service members and authorize $858 billion in defense spending.

The National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that authorizes Pentagon spending and policies, cleared the Senate in an 83-11 vote. Five Republicans and six Democrats opposed the measure.

It passed the House in a 350-80 vote last week.

The legislation now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Twitter suspends journalists who have been covering Elon Musk and the company

Twitter

Twitter on Thursday evening suddenly suspended several high-profile journalists who cover the platform and Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world, who acquired the company just a few months ago.

Hours after the suspensions took hold, Musk faced off with one of the journalists he suspended in a Twitter Space audio discussion before an audience of more than 30,000 listeners. The suspended journalist, along with several others, found a backdoor way onto the platform through the website’s audio function.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Kinzinger Breaks Down Why He ‘Absolutely’ Believes Donald Trump Is ‘Guilty of a Crime’

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he believes former President Donald Trump is “guilty of a crime” for his behavior surrounding the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“After all you have learned as a member of the committee. On a personal basis. So not speaking for the committee, but just you personally, do you think that Donald Trump has committed a prosecutable crime related to January 6th and the and the attempt to overturn the election?” Tapper asked.

“Look, I have to caveat it with that. I’m not a Justice Department official. They have different levels of standards. I think he’s guilty of a crime,” Kinzinger replied.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Trump Hoarded Most Of The $147 Million In Small-Donor Money He Raised For Himself

Just weeks after touting a new super PAC to help Republican candidates in the November midterms, Donald Trump wound up spending just a fraction of the $100 million he had available ― and hoarded the rest for his own 2024 presidential run.

The coup-attempting former president in October transferred $60 million from his Save America “leadership” PAC to his Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC, which was ostensibly created to boost GOP candidates in tight races. It collected another $9 million from an existing pro-Trump super PAC and $4 million from new contributions.

Of that $73 million total, though, only $15 million went toward electing Republicans in five Senate races, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, with not a dime spent helping Herschel Walker in Georgia for his Dec. 6 runoff. A full $54 million remains available for the super PAC’s new stated goal, helping Trump win back the White House.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Federal Reserve announces slower pace of interest rate hikes as inflation cools

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

Amid signs that price growth in the U.S. economy is rapidly cooling, the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it was slowing the pace of its rate-hiking program designed to tackle inflation — but that more hikes were still on the table.

The Federal Open Market Committee said it was increasing its key federal funds rate by 0.5%, after announcing four-straight 0.75% hikes at its most recent meetings. In its Wednesday statement, the Fed said it continues to target an inflation rate of 2% over the long term and would continue to increase the federal funds rate to do so.

“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures,” the committee said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Alleged Pelosi attacker also planned to go after Hunter Biden, Tom Hanks and Gavin Newsom, police say

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

The man charged with attacking the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also had plans to target Hunter Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and actor Tom Hanks, according to a police officer who interviewed the alleged assailant.

San Francisco Police Lt. Carla Hurley testified in court Wednesday that David DePape revealed the target list to her during an hourlong interview at a hospital shortly after the attack on Paul Pelosi in October.

An earlier court filing said DePape had named several “prominent” state and federal politicians, their relatives and a local professor as other targets; it did not identify any of them.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Trump’s conservative base deserting him for DeSantis – poll

graph poll
graph poll

Most Republican-leaning voters would prefer Florida’s governor over Donald Trump as their 2024 presidential nominee, according to a survey.

By a 56%-33% margin, conservative voters picked Governor Ron DeSantis over the former president, who formally launched his new campaign last month.

The Suffolk University/USA Today poll also found President Joe Biden had higher approval numbers than Mr Trump.

It follows mixed results for Trump-backed candidates in midterm elections.

Read the rest of the story at BBC

Congressional negotiators reach bipartisan agreement on framework for funding deal

Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan deal Tuesday on the framework for a massive government funding package they hope to pass before the holidays.

“Today, Vice Chairman Shelby, Chair DeLauro, and I reached a bipartisan, bicameral framework that should allow us to finish an omnibus appropriations bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the President,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. “The pain of inflation is real, and it is being felt across the federal government and by American families right now. We cannot delay our work any further.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

McConnell says Trump fueled ‘candidate quality’ problems in the midterms

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump’s endorsements in important 2022 primaries contributed to the nominations of poor candidates who fell short in swing states.

He made the remarks at his weekly news conference, responding to a question from NBC News about whether he intends to play a more active role in selecting candidates in the 2024 election cycle, when Republicans have a friendlier map.

“We ended up having a candidate quality test,” McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters about the 2022 election. “Look at Arizona. Look at New Hampshire. And the challenging situation in Georgia, as well,” he said, mentioning states where Trump-endorsed candidates won their primaries and lost to Democrats in the general election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden signs same-sex marriage bill at White House ceremony

White House LGBT Gay Rainbow Lights
White House LGBT Gay Rainbow Lights

President Joe Biden signed legislation Tuesday to codify federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages in a ceremony at the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff also attended.

“Today is a good day, a day America takes a vital step toward equality, toward liberty and justice, not just for some, but for everyone,” Biden said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Trump special counsel subpoenas Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to investigate former President Donald Trump at the Justice Department, has issued a subpoena to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Raffensperger on Monday received a subpoena from Smith dated Dec. 9, a spokesman for his office said. His office had no further comment. The subpoena was first reported Monday by The Washington Post.

The subpoena asks Raffensperger to provide documents; it is not a request for him to appear or testify in person, said a source familiar with the matter. His lawyers are “weighing options” about a timeline to respond, the source said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Elon Musk’s Twitter Dissolves Trust And Safety Council

Twitter

Elon Musk’s Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations that the company formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.

The council had been scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives Monday night. But Twitter informed the group via email that it was disbanding it shortly before the meeting was to take place, according to multiple members.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Charlie Pierce: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Idea of Sarcasm Is Going to Get Someone Killed

Watching Rep. Kevin McCarthy try to muster up 218 people who want him to be speaker of the House—and he would sell his gray-haired granny to Somali pirates to get the gig—is some pretty boring horse-race stuff, truth be told. McCarthy is a dim, pale fellow whose every move is transparent and predictable.

The real value in following the story is the very clear look we’re getting at how the inmates are going to run the asylum, no matter who is putatively in charge. For example, in New York this weekend, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke to the Young Republicans of New York. MTG is perhaps McCarthy’s most important ally in his quest, as well as a human bridge to Krazyville. This is important to remember when considering what she told the larval wingnuts in their tuxedos.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

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Sinema’s switch to independent driven by ‘political aspirations,’ Sen. Bernie Sanders says

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party was driven by “political aspirations for the future in Arizona,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday.

“I happen to suspect that it’s probably a lot to do with politics back in Arizona,” Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think the Democrats there are not all that enthusiastic about somebody who helped sabotage some of the most important legislation that protects the interests of working families and voting rights and so forth.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says ‘We Would’ve Won’ If She Organized The Jan. 6 Attack

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol would have been successful if she’d been running the show.

“I want to tell you something. If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed,” she said of the Jan. 6, 2021, attempt by supporters of then-President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the New York Post.

Greene made the comment during a speech filled with “one-liners trolling the political left” at an annual gala hosted by the New York Young Republican Club in Manhattan, the Post reported.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump Was ‘Not Particularly Interested’ In Freeing Paul Whelan: Ex-WH Official

Trump Dumb
Trump Dumb

Former President Donald Trump was “not particularly interested” in freeing former Marine Paul Whelan from a Russian prison while he was in office, a former White House national security official said Sunday following incendiary complaints by Trump that more hasn’t been done for Whelan.

“I also have to say here that President Trump wasn’t especially interested in engaging in that swap for also Paul Whelan,” Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council Russia specialist, said in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “He was not particularly interested in Paul’s case in the way that one would have thought he would be.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Congress struggles to reach funding deal as conservatives push to torpedo it

capitol washington DC
capitol washington DC

Congressional leaders and the White House are struggling to reach a deal on a massive government funding package, warning that they almost certainly will need to pass a short-term measure to avert a shutdown at the end of the week. 

Lawmakers had hoped to wrap up their work in the lame duck session by Friday but are now making plans to stay around right up until the Christmas weekend. Some say they may have to return to Washington the week after that as well, putting at risk family vacations and official congressional delegation trips abroad.

The fate of the bill is also linked to an election overhaul measure to avoid another Jan. 6, which Senate leaders hope to attach to it. Congress must fund the government before Saturday to avoid a shutdown.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: In 2022, Republicans Tried to F*** Everyone But Ended Up F***ing Themselves

The end of an election cycle leaves us with myriad questions: Who got fucked? Who did the fucking? Who fucked up? My favorite question is one that can be agonizing if you’re asking it about your own side, but it’s delicious when you’re asking it about your opponents. “Who fucked themselves?” implies that a strategy not only failed; it worked to actively harm the strategizers. An even better version of this is when the strategy involves fuckers working intensely to fuck others but ending up fucking the fuckers. 

And the GOP in 2022 fucked themselves hard. Oh, sure, they thought they were putting on a strap-on and humping away at voting rights and faith in the electoral process while forcing even more insane candidates, more Greenes and Gaetzes and Gosars (the three Gs of the asinine apocalypse), on their voters. But the way the election turned out, even with regaining the House (barely), it sure as hell looks like they put that strap-on on backwards and fucked their own asses, which is all well and good if you want your ass reamed, but not so pleasant if you weren’t expecting or desiring anal penetration.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

SMHH VideoCast with Margaret Cho – 12-9-22

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StephCast F 12-9-22

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Sinema leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent

Kyrsten Sinema
Kyrsten Sinema

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as a political independent, she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an exclusive TV interview.

“I’ve registered as an Arizona independent. I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually, I think it makes a lot of sense,” Sinema said in a Thursday interview with Tapper in her Senate office.

“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” she added. “Removing myself from the partisan structure – not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.”

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Brittney Griner Is Headed to San Antonio After Prisoner Swap

Brittney Griner WNBA
Brittney Griner WNBA

Brittney Griner was expected to arrive back in the United States early Friday after her release was secured in a swap with a convicted Russian arms dealer, putting an end to her 10 months of captivity in Russia that became a geopolitical bargaining chip between Washington and Moscow.

Ms. Griner will probably head to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, a facility the U.S. government has used to treat those in need of debriefing or sensitive medical care. There, she will be examined and receive any necessary treatment.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Florida legislator who sponsored ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law resigns amid Covid-relief fraud charges

The Florida state representative who sponsored legislation opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill resigned Thursday, a day after he was accused of fraudulently obtaining tens of thousands of dollars from a federal Covid-relief program.

State Rep. Joseph Harding, a Republican, said his resignation would be “effective immediately.” He has been indicted on a slew of charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements and other crimes.

The six-count indictment alleges that Harding, 35, sought more than $150,000 in Covid-relief loans and received roughly $45,000 in January and February 2021, for a pair of companies that had been dormant in the months before the applications were filed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House passes bill to protect same-sex marriage, sending it to Biden’s desk

LGBT Gay Pride Flag Rainbow
LGBT Gay Pride Flag Rainbow

The House passed legislation Thursday that would enshrine federal protections for marriages of same-sex and interracial couples.

The vote of 258-169 sends the Respect for Marriage Act to President Joe Biden, who praised Congress for passing the bill and is expected to sign it into law. The Senate passed the bill last week by a vote of 61-36.

Democrats were unified in favor of the bill, while most Republicans in both chambers voted against it. Thirty-nine House Republicans supported the legislation Thursday, and one voted present. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Republicans Begin To Point Finger At Trump After Disappointing Georgia Election

Some Republicans attributed their party’s losses in the 2022 midterm elections, including most recently in Georgia’s Senate runoff election, to former President Donald Trump and his baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“His obsession with the 2020 election became an albatross and a real liability for people who are running, especially in swing states,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters on Wednesday.

“The moral of that story is again, that when people think about elections … they want candidates that come forward and talk about forward-looking positive agenda that hopefully inspires and appeals to their hopes and their aspirations and in some states, at least, we didn’t do a good job at that,” he added.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Fringe Election Theory That Could Upend American Democracy

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The justices on the Supreme Court appeared split Wednesday over whether to back a fringe theory that would upend election and redistricting law in every state.

The court heard arguments in the case of Moore v. Harper, which involves the independent state legislature theory. It holds that state legislatures were unbound by state constitutions and state courts when enacting law governing federal elections or drawing congressional district maps. This highly controversial theory has never been accepted by the judicial branch and has been deemed “historically implausible” and “antithetical” to the Constitution by historians of the founding era and judicial scholars, conservative and liberal alike.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Legislator behind Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law is accused of Covid-relief fraud

syringe money vaccine
syringe money vaccine

The Florida legislator who sponsored legislation critics dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was accused of illegally obtaining tens of thousands of dollars in Covid-relief funds, authorities said Wednesday.

Joseph Harding, 35, was indicted on six counts of wire fraud, money laundering, making false statements and other crimes, the U.S. attorney’s office for Northern Florida said in a release.

Harding, a Republican whose district is south of Gainesville, is accused of seeking Covid-relief loans from the Small Business Administration in 2020 for two companies, Vak Shack Inc. and Harding Farms, according to the indictment.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Additional items marked classified found in Trump storage unit

Trump Classified Documents
Trump Classified Documents

A search for documents carried out at the behest of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys turned up two documents with classified markings at a Florida storage facility, two people familiar with the documents told NBC News.

The documents were found recently in a facility not far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and were turned over to the FBI, the sources said, confirming a report published Wednesday in The Washington Post.

The find comes almost four months after FBI agents executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence and found over 100 documents with classification markings, including some that were marked top secret.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 12-7-22

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Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenas local officials in Trump investigation

Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed local officials in key presidential swing states for any and all communications involving former President Donald Trump, his campaign and a series of aides and allies who assisted in his effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Subpoenas were issued to top elections officials in Wayne County, Michigan; Milwaukee and Dane counties, Wisconsin; Maricopa County, Arizona; and Allegheny County, Pa. Those counties are home to Detroit, Milwaukee, Madison, Phoenix and Pittsburgh.

The existence of the subpoenas was first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jan. 6 committee chair expects panel to issue criminal referrals to DOJ

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

The chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., expects the panel to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, he told reporters Tuesday.

“We have made decisions on criminal referrals,” Thompson said. 

Thompson said the panel has yet to formalize its decision. He also declined to say which individuals would be subject to the referrals or how many he expects the panel to make.

Thompson later told reporters that he thinks there is “general agreement” on the panel that referrals will be issued.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jury finds Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud scheme

Golden Gavel Court
Golden Gavel Court

A jury in New York on Tuesday found the Trump Organization guilty of all charges in a sweeping, 15-year tax fraud scheme that prosecutors said was orchestrated by top executives at the company.

Jurors deliberated for just over a day before returning the guilty verdicts on a total of 17 counts, including scheme to defraud, conspiracy, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. The company faces roughly $1.6 million in fines when it’s sentenced. The sentencing is expected to take place on Jan. 13, 2023.

“The former president’s companies now stand convicted of crimes. That is consequential. It underscores that in Manhattan we have one standard of justice for all,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told reporters, calling the underlying case one of “greed and cheating.”

Democratic Sen. Warnock defeats Republican Walker in Georgia runoff

Warnock Herschel Walker Election Vote Georgia
Warnock Herschel Walker Election Vote

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican football star Herschel Walker on Tuesday in Georgia’s Senate runoff election, NBC News projects, handing President Joe Biden and his party a key win.

Warnock’s victory will give Democrats an outright majority in the Senate after two years under a 50-50 divide, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes.

The win cements President Joe Biden’s unexpected midterm success, allowing his party to grow the majority in the Senate.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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GOP leaders silent so far on Trump’s call for ‘termination’ of Constitution’s rules

United States Constitution We The People
United States Constitution We The People

The White House on Monday and some Republicans in Congress condemned former President Donald Trump’s call for “termination” of the Constitution’s rules — while GOP congressional leaders kept silent on Trump’s comment and Democrats demanded Republicans rebuke him.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked about Trump’s comment, said she wanted to be “careful” about how she answered from the briefing room podium since Trump has declared his candidacy for 2024 but reminded that his own administration officials have called the 2020 election the most secure in American history.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti, onetime opponent of Donald Trump, sentenced to 14 years in fraud case

Prison Jail
Prison Jail

Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced on Monday to 14 years in federal prison for defrauding his clients and for obstructing IRS efforts to collect payroll taxes from his coffee business.

He was also ordered to pay $7 million in restitution.

The sentence will run consecutively with his combined five-year sentence in New York for stealing from Stormy Daniels and for extorting Nike.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Supreme Court leans toward web designer over refusal to work on same-sex weddings

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Conservative Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared sympathetic toward an evangelical Christian web designer’s bid to avoid working on same-sex weddings as they weighed the latest clash between religious conservatives and LGBTQ rights.

But after two-and-a-half hours of arguments that included a broad array of tough hypothetical questions directed at both sides, involving far-fetched scenarios like a “Black Santa” at a shopping mall refusing to serve children dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits, it is unclear how exactly the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will rule.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Warnock gains early voting edge as both candidates barnstorm Georgia in final day before Senate runoff

Vote Election Ballot
Vote Election Ballot

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has built up an advantage in Georgia’s record-breaking early vote, putting Republican Herschel Walker in a position where he’ll need to deliver big on Election Day to win in Tuesday’s Senate runoff.

Georgians have been bombarded with TV ads, radio messages, direct mail and ceaseless fundraising appeals in the closely watched Senate race. Many of them are ready for it to be over.

“It’s been very, very exhausting,” said Ana Gomez, a sophomore at Georgia Tech who attended Warnock’s rally on campus Monday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: Trump Throws the Constitution Under the Bus for Election Lies

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire

Physicians who work with Alzheimer’s patients call it an “amyloid cascade”; or they used to, when everyone but a couple of mavericks believed that deposits of beta-amyloid protein the the brain caused the disease, a long-held hypothesis that is now undergoing long-overdue reconsideration. Anyway, an amyloid “cascade” describes when a relatively stable AD patient suddenly suffers a catastrophic decline, a mudslide of symptoms in a relatively short space of time.

Here at the shebeen, we have long talked about the prion disease that has afflicted American conservative thought, and the Republican Party that has been its primary vehicle since Ronald Reagan fed the GOP its first helping of monkey brains back in the late 1970s. Over the weekend, we experienced what can safely be called a “prion cascade” that has left the Republican Party blithering incomprehensible ragtime while some of its more enthusiastic adherents took matters into their own hands.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

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Paul Pelosi attends Kennedy Center Honors in first public appearance since home attack

Kennedy Center Washington DC
Kennedy Center Washington DC

Paul Pelosi and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night, marking Paul Pelosi’s first public appearance since he was attacked in his San Francisco home in October.

The couple attended the annual ceremony, which honors a select group of people every year for their artistic influences on American culture, along with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses as well. Paul Pelosi, who suffered a fractured skull when his suspected attacker allegedly assaulted him with a hammer, arrived wearing a black hat.

After seeing Paul Pelosi, Mr. Biden pumped his fist in the air.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Supreme Court today confronts case pitting free speech against LGBTQ rights

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

When the Supreme Court convenes for oral arguments Monday, it will be confronted with an issue it has been asked to resolve before in court fights involving bakers, a florist, and now, a web designer.

And with the latest case before it, brought by graphic designer Lorie Smith, Colorado is once again the battleground in a dispute pitting the First Amendment right to free speech against LGBTQ rights.

Smith, like bakers Jack Phillips and Aaron and Melissa Klein, and florist Barronelle Stutzman before her, is a Christian business owner who says her religious beliefs prevent her from creating custom websites for a same-sex wedding. But her refusal could violate Colorado’s public accommodation law, which prohibits businesses open to the public from refusing service because of sexual orientation and announcing their intent to do so.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Georgia breaks early voting record again in Senate runoff

georgia

Georgians swarmed to the polls on the last day of early voting before next week’s Senate runoff, setting a new record for single-day early in-person turnout.

At least 352,953 people voted in person on Friday, bringing the total number of votes, either in person or absentee, to over 1.8 million. That number represents 26.4% of active voters.

It’s a strong start for turnout for the Dec. 6 contest between Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Top Republicans stay silent on Trump’s call to terminate the Constitution

United States Constitution We The People
United States Constitution We The People

Top Republicans have stayed silent as the White House strongly criticized former President Donald Trump for suggesting that the Constitution be terminated in his ongoing efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

In a post to his Truth Social platform Saturday, Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to put him back in power, citing his baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the last presidential election. “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” he wrote.

Trump’s post came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk promoted a series of tweets Friday revealing internal documents about how the company handled a New York Post article about Hunter Biden in 2020.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

SMHH VideoCast with Hal Sparks – 12-2-22

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StephCast F 12-2-22

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Closing arguments get underway in the Trump Organization’s tax fraud trial

Golden Gavel Court
Golden Gavel Court

Closing arguments began Thursday in the tax fraud trial of the Trump Organization, which is accused of a sweeping 15-year schemeto compensate top executives of former President Donald Trump’s company off the books.

The defense began by recapping testimony from the prosecution’s star witness in the criminal trial, former company chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and others.

Trump Organization lawyers laid out their case that Weisselberg committed his crimes to benefit himself, saying prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did so on behalf of the company.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Arizona county that balked at certifying election results finalizes tally after court order

Phoenix Arizona Cactus
Phoenix Arizona Cactus Saguaro

A Republican-led county in Arizona that flouted a statutory deadlinefor election certification ended up certifying its results Thursday shortly after a judge ordered officials there to take action.

Officials in Cochise County voted 2-0 to accept the results of the Nov. 8 election, enabling statewide certification to move forward Monday.

Ann English, the sole Democrat on the three-member Board of Supervisors, and Vice Chair Peggy Judd, a Republican, voted to approve the election results. GOP member Tom Crosby was absent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate votes to avert rail strike, sends the legislation to Biden for his signature

Railroad crossing rail railway
Railroad crossing rail railway

The Senate passed legislation Thursday to avoid an economically catastrophic rail strike one day after the House approved the measure.

It now goes to President Joe Biden, who said he “will sign the bill into law.” He had pleaded with Congress to act swiftly, warning of major harm to supply chains that could disrupt supplies of clean drinking water and gasoline in an already fragile economy.

“Working together, we have spared this country a Christmas catastrophe in our grocery stores, in our workplaces, and in our communities,” Biden said in a statement after the Senate vote. “I know that many in Congress shared my reluctance to override the union ratification procedures. But in this case, the consequences of a shutdown were just too great for working families all across the country.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal Court Halts Mar-a-Lago Special Master Review In Blow To Trump

A federal appeals court on Thursday ended an independent review of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, removing a hurdle the Justice Department said had delayed its criminal investigation into the retention of top-secret government information.

The decision by the three-judge panel represents a significant win for federal prosecutors, clearing the way for them to use as part of their investigation the entire tranche of documents seized during an Aug. 8 FBI search of Mar-a-Lag o. It also amounts to a sharp repudiation of arguments by Trump’s lawyers, who for months had said that the former president was entitled to have a so-called “special master” conduct a neutral review of the thousands of documents taken from the property.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

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Hakeem Jeffries Elected To Lead House Dems’ Next Generation

Rep Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House
Rep Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House

Emboldened House Democrats ushered in a new generation of leaders on Wednesday with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries elected to be the first Black American to head a major political party in Congress as long-serving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team step aside next year.

Showing rare party unity after their midterm election losses, the House Democrats moved seamlessly from one history-making leader to another, choosing the 52-year-old New Yorker, who has vowed to “get things done,” even after Republicans won control of the chamber. The closed-door vote was unanimous, by acclamation.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Jan. 6 committee to release transcripts of interviews along with report, expected before Christmas, Thompson says

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

The House Jan. 6 committee will release transcripts of interviews investigators conducted in their investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the panel’s chairman, Bennie Thompson, said Wednesday.

“We plan to make available transcripts and other materials,” Thompson, D-Miss., told reporters on Capitol Hill. He later confirmed that the panel had finished all of its depositions.

The transcripts will be made public at the same time as the committee’s long-awaited report summarizing and detailing the probe, Thompson said, adding that he expects they would be released before the Christmas holiday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter, dies at 79

Christine McVie Fleetwood Mac
Christine McVie Fleetwood Mac

Christine McVie, the English musician whose smoky vocals and romantic lyrics helped catapult the rock group Fleetwood Mac to international success, died Wednesday, the band and her family announced on social media.

She was 79.

“There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie,” the group said in a statement on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. “She was truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure.

.Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump’s tax returns now in the hands of House Ways-And-Means after lengthy court battle

A Democratic-led House committee now has access to six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns after a multiyear court fight.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that it had complied with last week’s Supreme Court decision that paved the way for the returns to be handed over to the House Ways and Means Committee.

The committee didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. CNN first reported that the committee had received the tax returns.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 11-30-22

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Biden rallies lawmakers to act to avert rail strike ahead of looming deadline

Railroad crossing rail railway
Railroad crossing rail railway

President Joe Biden stepped up calls for Congress to avert a looming rail strike in a meeting at the White House with top lawmakers Tuesday, warning that the economy was at risk if they failed to act in the next few days.

Talks between railway workers and their employers appear to have stalled, making the prospect of a Dec. 9 strike more imminent. Shipments of crucial materials, like chemicals used to treat drinking water, are set to start winding down this week, industry leaders have warned, after some railway unions rejected an agreement between labor leaders and railway companies. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

McConnell after Trump-Fuentes dinner: Anyone meeting with antisemites ‘unlikely to ever be elected president’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., appeared to take aim at former President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his decision to host Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes for dinner last week at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

Flanked by other top Republicans, the GOP’s Senate leader opened his weekly news conference by saying: “First, let me just say that there is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism or white supremacy. And anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate passes bill to protect same-sex and interracial marriage over GOP opposition

LGBT Gay Pride Flag Rainbow
LGBT Gay Pride Flag Rainbow

The Senate passed landmark legislation Tuesday that would codify federal protection for marriages of same-sex and interracial couples, with Democrats securing enough votes to overcome opposition from most Republicans.

The Respect for Marriage Act was approved 61-36, with support from all Democrats and 12 GOP votes, after a filibuster was defeated and three amendments offered by Republicans who oppose the bill were rejected.

The measure now returns to the House for a final vote before it can go to President Joe Biden, who said he looks forward to enacting it.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Two Oath Keepers, including founder, convicted of seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 case

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

A federal jury in Washington on Tuesday found Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs, another member of the far-right organization, guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a victory for the government in a case that involved a rarely used Civil War era statute.

Three other members of the group who were on trial alongside Rhodes and Meggs — Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell — were found not guilty on the seditious conspiracy charge. All five defendants were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 11-29-22

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StephCast M 11-28-22

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Democrat Mary Peltola defeats Sarah Palin in race for Alaska’s at-large House seat

Alaska Map
Alaska Map

Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola has won a full two-year term representing Alaska in the House, NBC News projected Wednesday, defeating former governor and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Peltola made history in August when she became the first Alaska Native seated in Congress after she won the special election to replace longtime GOP Rep. Don Young, who died in March at the age of 88.

Shortly after news broke that she had won a full term on Wednesday night, Peltola tweeted “WE DID IT!!!”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden says he’ll renew push for assault weapons ban following spate of mass shootings

White House Washington DC President
White House DC President

President Joe Biden said Thursday he would make a renewed effort to enact a ban on assault-style rifles following a wave of mass shootings that have again put a spotlight on the nation’s gun laws.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to a fire station on Thanksgiving morning, the president reiterated his long-standing argument that such weapons are a societal menace and should not be sold.

“The idea that we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” he said while greeting firefighters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he and his family are spending the Thanksgiving holiday. “It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 11-23-22

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StephCast T 11-22-22

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StephCast M 11-21-22

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Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel named in the Trump investigations

Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

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Lawmakers Urge Action After Report Of Other Supreme Court Leak

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said his panel is reviewing “serious allegations” in a report that a former anti-abortion leader knew in advance the outcome of a 2014 Supreme Court case involving health care coverage of contraception.

The report Saturday in The New York Times followed the stunning leak earlier this year of a draft opinion in the case in which the high court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protections for abortion. That decision was written by Justice Samuel Alito, who is also the author of the majority opinion in the 2014 case at the center of the new report.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Schiff contends Republican House majority will ‘be chaos’ with a ‘very weak leader’

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday said he expects the incoming Republican majority will give in to its “lowest common denominator” members by pursuing decisions like removing him from his committee assignments.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” Schiff was asked by co-anchor Jonathon Karl about GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s promise to kick Schiff off the intelligence committee, to which Schiff responded that he thinks McCarthy will follow the lead of hardline lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

“Well, I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do. He’s a very weak leader of this conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator, and if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do,” Schiff said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Colorado club shooting updates: Suspect named after 5 dead, dozens injured at LGBTQ nightclub

Love Over Hate Memorial Shooting Colorado
Love Over Hate Memorial Shooting Colorado

Five people were killed and dozens others were injured in a shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado, officials said.

The suspect, identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, allegedly began shooting as soon as he walked into Club Q in Colorado Springs late Saturday night, Colorado Springs Police Chief Adrian Vasquez told reporters during a news conference Sunday morning.

At least two people, whom authorities described as heroes, then confronted Aldrich and fought with him, which saved more lives, police said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

SMHH Video Podcast with Kathleen Madigan 11-18-22

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StephCast F 11-18-22 – new

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Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg takes the stand in criminal case against company

Golden Gavel Court
Golden Gavel Court

A longtime executive at the Trump Organization took the witness stand Tuesday for the first time to testify against his employer in a criminal tax fraud case against the company, telling jurors that Donald Trump had been aware of the unusual pay structure for high-level employees.

Former Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, prosecutors’ star witness in their case against Trump’s company, described his role in a scheme that he said allowed the company and executives like him to cheat on taxes. He also told jurors that he pleaded guilty in August and was testifying as part of his plea agreement.

Weisselberg, 75, said Trump was aware that compensation for executives included perks such as apartments and luxury cars in lieu of extra salary.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Republicans plan investigations and possible impeachments with new majority

House Republicans’ majority will be smaller than expected, but they’re eager to use their new oversight powers and pass a spate of bills to draw contrasts with Democrats and give the Biden administration heartburn.

In this moment of divided government and fierce partisanship, it’s perhaps appropriate that the GOP conference is expected to be led by Reps. Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana, veteran lawmakers known more for their skills in political combat than for their policy acumen.

Although House Republicans will still face a Democratic White House and Senate aimed at blocking their legislative aims, McCarthy — who is working feverishly to cement his ascension to speaker despite growing discontent in his ranks — has already made it clear the party plans to launch investigations into the Biden administration and at least one of the president’s family members.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, says she’ll step down as Democratic leader

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, who helped shape many of the most consequential laws of the early 21st century, said Thursday that she will step down after two decades as the Democratic Party’s leader in the chamber.

“With great confidence in our caucus I will not seek re-election to Democratic leadership in the next Congress,” Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor.

Pelosi was speaker from 2007 to 2011 and returned to the top job in 2019. She announced her decision just a day after NBC News and other news outlets projected that Republicans had flipped control of the House in last week’s midterm election, sending Pelosi and the Democrats back to the minority.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Twitter to temporarily close offices amid wave of new resignations after Musk’s ultimatum

Twitter

Twitter said it would be closing all its offices until Monday, according to an email shared by a departing employee, after a new wave of employees resigned when Elon Musk issued an ultimatum telling them they would need to be willing to commit to a “hardcore” work environment.

“Please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere,” the email shared with CNBC on Thursday said.

Internal Slack messages also shared with CNBC showed engineers and other employees posting goodbye messages to a “watercooler” chat group in the run-up to the 5 p.m. ET Thursday deadline Musk set Wednesday. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast Th 11-17-22

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Pelosi plans to address her future in Congress on Thursday

Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., plans to address her future in Congress to her colleagues on Thursday, according to her spokesperson.

“@SpeakerPelosi has been overwhelmed by calls from colleagues, friends and supporters. This evening, the Speaker monitored returns in the three remaining critical states. The Speaker plans to address her future plans tomorrow to her colleagues. Stay tuned,” Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill tweeted Wednesday night.

As Democrats celebrate overperforming expectations in the midterm elections, a conversation between Pelosi and fellow members of the California delegation has fueled speculation on the question of will Pelosi stay or will she step down from her leadership role.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Karen Bass becomes first woman elected mayor of Los Angeles

Los Angeles Skyline
Los Angeles Skyline

Democratic Rep. Karen Bass has been elected mayor of Los Angeles, NBC News projected Wednesday, making her the first woman to hold the role.

Bass defeated Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer who was endorsed by Elon Musk, in a tight race to replace Democrat Eric Garcetti. The race was nonpartisan; both Bass and Caruso are Democrats. Caruso spent about $100 million on his campaign.

Bass, who is serving her sixth term in the House, was on the shortlist to be Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate in 2020. She announced her mayoral campaign in September of last year, saying tackling the city’s homeless crisis would be a top priority.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Republicans win control of the House, overtaking Democrats by a slim margin

Republicans have won control of the House, NBC News projected Wednesday, handing President Joe Biden a divided Congress after Democrats kept control of the Senate in last week’s midterm elections.

Republicans finally cemented their takeover a week after polls closed on Election Day, fueled by Democrats’ surprising strength around the country. Republicans had hopes of sweeping into power with dozens of wins, but instead they will have only a thin majority, complicating their ability to function in the House chamber.

The results revealed an America still torn over former President Donald Trump, his repeated false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and how the country and the GOP should move forward. In several close races, voters cited the economy and inflation as their top concerns, but they weren’t enough to power Republicans to a decisive sweep after Trump effectively made the elections a referendum on him, his past and his plans as the de facto leader of the party.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 11-16-22

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Kevin McCarthy wins GOP nomination for House speaker

Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy

House Republicans nominated Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the current minority leader, as their candidate for speaker of the House on Tuesday, with McCarthy overcoming a conservative challenger as the party inches closer to winning control of the lower chamber.

McCarthy was tapped as the nominee in an internal meeting of the Republican conference by a secret-ballot vote of 188 to 31, multiple sources in the meeting confirmed to CBS News. The vote means the California Republican is the favorite to become speaker of a GOP-controlled House, but the path to securing the 218 votes needed to claim the gavel during a vote of the full House in January is likely to be a difficult one, since Republicans are poised to hold a razor-thin majority of seats after a weaker-than-expected performance in last week’s midterm elections.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Poland calls missile that killed 2 ‘Russian-made’; Biden says it’s ‘unlikely’ it was fired from Russia

Israel Gaza Palestine Missiles War
Israel Gaza Palestine Missiles War

The Polish government said a Russian-made missile killed two of its citizens Tuesday near the border with Ukraine, but U.S. President Joe Biden said that it was “unlikely” that it was launched from Russia.

Polish leaders convened an emergency security and defense meeting and agreed to increase its military readiness.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an explanation for the deadly blast in Przewodów, a settlement near the southeastern town of Hrubieszów.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Rick Scott will challenge McConnell for top Senate GOP leadership post

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., on Tuesday announced a challenge to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for the top Republican leadership job in the Senate.

“The status quo is broken and big change is needed,” Scott said in a tweet. “It’s time for new leadership in the Senate that unites Republicans to advance a bold conservative agenda. That’s why I’m running to be the Senate Republican Leader.”

Scott first announced the move at a meeting of GOP members, a spokesman said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump, whose lies about the 2020 election inspired an insurrection, announces third White House bid with rambling, low-energy speech

Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago
Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago

Donald Trump, the only president impeached twice, launched a campaign to reclaim the Oval Office on Tuesday, two years after voters ousted him and a week after they rejected his hand-picked candidates in several pivotal Senate races.

“America’s comeback starts right now,” Trump said from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he was joined by members of his family and prominent supporters such as political operative Roger Stone, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

“We have always known that this was not the end. It was only the beginning of our fight to rescue the American dream,” Trump said, adding a twist to his trademark slogan: “In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 11-15-22

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Trump D.C. hotel receipts reveal $10,500-a-night rooms for foreign officials seeking to influence U.S. policy

Trump Tower Chicago
Trump Tower Chicago

During Donald Trump’s presidency, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, China and Malaysia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump International Hotel in Washington at the same time they were trying to influence U.S. foreign policy, according to investigative findings released Monday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Hotel receipts obtained by the Oversight Committee show that the then–prime minister of Malaysia and his delegation spent $259,724 at the hotel during a one-week stay in September 2017, including a $10,000 room and a $1,500 “Personal Trainer” for embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak, as well as $9,229 for “Coffee Break[s].” At the time, Razak was unsuccessfully lobbying the Trump administration to drop an investigation into a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund he had co-founded.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Partisan control of the House remains unknown with 14 races uncalled

capitol washington DC
capitol washington DC

Races for more than a dozen House seats remained uncalled as of Monday night, leaving political control of the chamber unknown nearly a week after voting in the 2022 midterms general election cycle concluded.

Most of the 14 House seats that NBC News has not called are in California. So far, Democrats have been elected to 206 seats and Republicans have won 215. A party needs to secure 218 to hold the majority in the House.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Conservatives warn McCarthy: You don’t have the votes for speaker

republican elephant GOP
republican elephant GOP

Conservative lawmakers sent a strong message to House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday, telling him he doesn’t have the votes to be the next speaker.

The warning shot came just one day before McCarthy heads into a closed-door election seeking to become his party’s nominee for speaker of the House starting in January.

The California Republican is expected to easily surpass the simple majority needed to win the nomination, but members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are planning to put up a symbolic challenger to make clear that McCarthy can’t reach the magic number needed — 218 votes — in the formal floor vote when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Democrat Katie Hobbs defeats MAGA favorite Kari Lake in high-stakes race for governor in Arizona

Phoenix Arizona Cactus
Phoenix Arizona Cactus Saguaro

Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has defeated Republican Kari Lake in Arizona’s race for governor, NBC News projected Monday.

Hobbs’ victory is key for Democrats in a presidential battleground state and a rebuke to a prominent election denier — although the closeness of the contest left the result up in the air for nearly a week.

“I am honored to have been selected to serve as the next Governor of Arizona,” Hobbs said in a statement Monday night. “I want to thank the voters for entrusting me with this immense responsibility. It is truly an honor of a lifetime, and I will do everything in my power to make you proud.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: Can Joe Biden Save America’s Soul?

It was a cold and windy February day in South Carolina. Pundits doing live shots in the parking lot of the bar were wearing blankets over the lower third of their bodies, just out of frame. A Democratic presidential primary was going on, and if there was a general consensus, it was that Joe Biden’s campaign at least had to cloud a mirror held under its nose to account for what had been to that point a doomed and futile ride into forced retirement.
 

He’d stumbled badly in Iowa, fallen flat on his face in New Hampshire, and finished far up the track in second in Nevada. This was Biden’s third try at the presidential nomination, and he had yet to win a single primary in any of them. A former vice president to a still-popular two-term president, Biden needed to do something in South Carolina or he was headed for the remainder bin. Almost a year later, after a lot of fuss and bother (and one armed insurrection), Biden was sworn in as the forty-sixth president of these United States. 

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

StephCast M 11-14-22

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Biden Takes Victory Lap Overseas On Dems Taking Senate But Notes ‘It’s Always Better With 51’

Biden Speaking
Biden Speaking

President Joe Biden took a victory lap in Cambodia over the Democrats taking control of the Senate again in the midterms, but noted a victory in the Georgia runoff is still crucial.

Shortly after Democrats ensured 50-seat control with the victory of Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, President Biden emerged to speak briefly with reporters at the Raffles Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Biden congratulated Leader Chuck Schumer and took questions for several minutes.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Democrats Sweep GOP Election Deniers In Battleground Races For Secretary Of State

democrat democratic donkey DNC
democrat democratic donkey

Republican election deniers used the 2022 midterms to target battleground positions for secretary of state that would allow them to take over key electoral systems and turn the “big lie” into official election protocols.

They completely failed.

The Associated Press has projected that Democrat Cisco Aguilar will defeat Republican election denier Jim Marchant in Nevada’s race, a result that confirmed Democrats had pulled off a clean sweep of the major contests for secretary of state that GOP election deniers had targeted.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Democrats retain control of Senate with victory in Nevada

Washington Dc Capitol
Washington Dc Capitol

Democrats will continue to control the Senate following the 2022 midterm elections, after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on Saturday was projected by CBS News to win a tight reelection race against Republican Adam Laxalt.

In a speech Sunday, Cortez Masto said when “national pundits said I couldn’t win, I knew Nevada would prove them wrong.”

Cortez Masto highlighted her support for first responders and labor unions, as well as her Latino heritage — her grandfather immigrated to Nevada from Mexico. And she said Nevada voters “rejected the far-right.” 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Trump sues Jan. 6 committee to block subpoena for documents, testimony

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

Former President Trump has sued to block the Jan. 6. committee subpoena for documents and testimony.

The committee last Friday extended the deadline for Trump to comply with their documents request by one week. The initial deadline was Nov. 4. The committee also asked Trump to appear for a deposition on Monday, Nov. 14.

As ABC News previously reported, this move was expected by Trump’s team to attempt to run out the clock on the subpoena before Republicans potentially retake the House following the 2022 midterm elections.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Rude Pundit: Blaming Trump Lets Republicans Off the Hook (and Other Observations on a Pretty Good Election)

The Rude Pundit
The Rude Pundit

(Started writing this early in the week, but because Covid is still a thing, I’ve been back in Louisiana with to see a sick, hospitalized family member. Things are looking good now, but it was dicey. Get vaccinated. Wear masks. Do the shit you need to do.)

In the wake of Republicans having their raging red wave erections slapped flaccid by the firm, stinging hand of reality in the 2022 midterm elections, blame for this epic cock block has seemed to come to rest on one major cause: Donald Trump, who really was once president of the United States (something that still boggles my mind every goddamn day) and is still, to some, the de facto leader of the Republican Party. “A red wave of criticism crashes into Donald Trump after midterm losses,” says the Washington Post, quoting current Republicans about how Trump’s endorsements and his general Donald Trumpishness didn’t help. The Guardian goes with “Republicans have someone to blame for their disappointing result: Donald Trump.” And Fox Business quotes former Trump adviser Mercedes Schlapp, which is the name of a real adult human and not an SNL character or terrible branding exercise, saying that Republicans were being too hasty to blame Trump.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

SMHH VideoCast with Jen Kirkman & Victor Shi 11-11-22

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StephCast F 11-11-22

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Alex Jones ordered to pay an additional $473 million to Sandy Hook families

justice court lawyer
justice court lawyer

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his company were ordered Thursday to pay an additional $473 million in punitive damages to families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre over promoting the falsehood that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax.

The order is part of a Connecticut lawsuit brought against Jones and his company Free Speech Systems Jones for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violations of the state Unfair Trade Practices Act. The plaintiffs testified in court that Jones profited off his lies that the school shooting never happened while they were harassed and abused by those who believed him.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Kevin McCarthy’s bid to be House speaker is in jeopardy

Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy

In 2015, bomb-throwers in the House Freedom Caucus derailed Kevin McCarthy’s quest to become speaker.

Seven years later, members of the ultraconservative, Trump-aligned group are once again causing major headaches for McCarthy as the California Republican makes another run for the top job.

NBC News has not yet projected which party will control the House, but an estimate modeling the outcome finds Republicans with a slightly better chance. Republicans would have a razor-thin majority should they win.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Democrats Pad Narrow Leads In Arizona Senate, Governor Races

Phoenix Arizona Cactus
Phoenix Arizona Cactus Saguaro

Democrats padded their narrow leads in key Arizona contests on Thursday, but the races for U.S. Senate and attorney general were still too early to call with about a fifth of the total ballots left to be counted.

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly led Republican Blake Masters by 5.6 percentage points, while Democrat Katie Hobbs had a much tighter lead of 1.4 points against Republican Kari Lake in the governor’s race. Democrats also led in the races for secretary of state and attorney general.

Election officials in Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix and more than 60% of voters, expected to begin reporting results Friday from a crucial group of ballots — nearly 300,000 mail ballots that were returned on Election Day. That group has swung wildly in recent election cycles, from strongly Democratic in the 2018 midterms to strongly Republican in 2020.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Trump Unleashes On ‘Average’ DeSantis After Florida Gov. Cruises To Victory

Former President Donald Trump issued a blistering tirade against newly reelected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday, calling the potential presidential nominee an “average” governor with “great public relations.”

“Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017 — he was politically dead, losing in a landslide,” Trump said in a statement. “Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win. … When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off.”

The former president unveiled a new nickname for DeSantis at a rally earlier this month, calling the governor Ron “DeSanctimonious.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

StephCast Th 11-10-22

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Control Of Congress Unclear With Many Races Still Up For Grabs

Capitol Washington Snow Night DC
Capitol Washington Snow Night DC

Americans will have to wait to learn whether Democrats will maintain control of the House and Senate, allowing President Joe Biden to continue to enact policy and appoint judges, or whether Republicans will receive a majority in either chamber to block his agenda.

Votes were still being counted in the Arizona and Nevada Senate races hours after the polls closed Tuesday evening. Meanwhile, Georgia’s Senate race is headed to a Dec. 6 runoff election after no candidate received a majority of the vote.

Democrats picked up an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania and are favored to hold on to their seat in Arizona. That means the question of Senate control will likely be decided by the winners of the Nevada and Georgia races.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

2022 Georgia Senate race: Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker headed for a runoff

georgia

The closely-watched race for the U.S. Senate in Georgia between Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker will head to a runoff election, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday afternoon.

“Ballots are being built as we speak, and counties are making preparations,” Raffensperger told reporters.

There was a third-party candidate in the race, and neither Warnock nor Walker was projected by CBS News to clear the 50% threshold of votes needed to declare victory, setting up another showdown between the two at the ballot box on Dec. 6.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Biden says midterm voters sent an ‘unmistakable message’ about democracy and abortion rights

Biden Speech
Biden Speech

President Joe Biden on Wednesday celebrated midterm electionresults that he said defied expectations for the Democratic Party, arguing that the country is on the “right path” under his leadership and that his policy agenda is delivering results.

Biden said at the White House that voters “sent a clear and unmistakable message” about issues such as democracy and abortion rights but were also “clear that they are still frustrated” when it comes to the economy and inflation.

While it remains unclear whether Democrats will keep control of Congress, Biden and his party have avoided the “red wave” that some strategists predicted would be fueled by inflation and economic woes.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 11-9-22

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Kari Lake or Katie Hobbs? Hobbs’ lead in Arizona’s race for governor narrows

Phoenix Arizona Cactus
Phoenix Arizona Cactus Saguaro
Katie Hobbs leads Kari Lake by thousands of votes, but it could still be a few days before all ballots are counted.
 

PHOENIX — Arizona’s race for governor has come down to a tight struggle between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs.

As of 2:00 a.m, the lead is narrowing. 

Read the story at AZCentral.com

J.D. Vance wins Ohio Senate race, defeating Democrat Tim Ryan, NBC News projects

Ohio Flag
Ohio Flag

J.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author who was a searing Donald Trump critic before he converted into one of his most loyal allies, has defeated Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio’s Senate race, NBC News projects.

Vance will succeed fellow Republican Rob Portman, who did not seek re-election. Unlike Portman, Vance has advanced unsubstantiated theories that a second term was stolen from Trump at the ballot box in 2020.

“I am overwhelmed with gratitude,” Vance told a cheering crowd of supporters crammed inside a hotel ballroom here.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

John Fetterman wins Pa. Senate race, defeating celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz and flipping key state for Democrats

Pennsylvania Seal
Pennsylvania Seal

John Fetterman, the state lieutenant governor, has won Pennsylvania’s high-voltage race for an open Senate seat, defeating celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, bringing an end to one of the nastiest and most expensive campaigns of the year as both parties treated it as a potential tipping point for control of the chamber.

Fetterman will succeed Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who opted against seeking re-election. Just after 2 a.m. E.T., Fetterman led by more than 2 percentage points with about 93% of expected votes being reported.

“It’s official. I will be the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania,” Fetterman tweeted. “We bet on the people of Pennsylvania — and you didn’t let us down. And I won’t let you down. Thank you.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

CONTROL OF CONGRESS UNCERTAIN AS DEMS DODGE A ‘REPUBLICAN WAVE’

A deeply divided American electorate delivered a Congress so evenly split that partisan control remained unknown Wednesday morning — and may for some time — after Republican hopes for a major “red wave” dissipated.

Hours after polls closed, dozens of critical House and Senate races remained too close to call. It could be weeks before control of the Senate is settled if the Georgia contest between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker is forced into a runoff in December.

It’s a far cry from the decisive early victory Republicans expected to sweep them into power on Capitol Hill, based on recent polls and historical trends. The GOP in anticipation had already drawn up plans to investigate and potentially even impeach President Joe Biden.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 11-8-22

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Stewart Rhodes says fellow Oath Keepers were ‘stupid’ to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6

Golden Gavel Court
Golden Gavel Court

Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told jurors at his seditious conspiracy trial Monday that other members of the far-right group who stormed the U.S. Capitol were “off-mission” and insisted he was not engaged in any operation to forcefully oppose the federal government on Jan. 6.

“I had no idea that any Oath Keeper was even thinking about going inside or would go inside,” Rhodes said in his testimony in what has become a six-week-long trial for himself and co-defendants Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell.

During hours of testimony, Rhodes told jurors that going into the Capitol was “stupid” because it “opened the door for our political enemies to persecute us, and that’s what happened, and here we are.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Powerball jackpot up to a dizzying, world record $1.9B as drawing delayed again

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

Americans are once again playing a waiting game in early November after Monday night’s Powerball drawing with a historic $1.9 billion jackpot was delayed.

Many had waited on tenterhooks for Monday’s result, only to learn that the drawing would be delayed, with the Multi-State Lottery Association saying it had one participating lottery that needed additional time to process its sales.  

Powerball requires all 48 participating lotteries to submit their sales and play data before the winning numbers can be selected.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Legal fight explodes in Pennsylvania over mail-in ballots

Pennsylvania Seal
Pennsylvania Seal

On the eve of Election Day, a legal battle has erupted in one of the most closely watched battleground states of the 2022 midterms.

Democrats sued Monday demanding that undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots be counted in Pennsylvania’s election, which could end up determining which party controls the Senate.

The lawsuit, filed in part by Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman’s campaign, argues that a provision in state law requiring that mail-in ballots include the date on the outside of the envelopes violates federal law. The suit names the state’s 67 county election boards as defendants.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Election Day Dawns, Shadowed by Threats to Democracy

Vote Election Ballot
Vote Election Ballot

After a long and chaotic campaign, Election Day is finally here. The consequential election could shift the balance of power in Congress and determine the fate of President Biden’s agenda, as well as legislation on abortion, immigration and crime. Also up for grabs are contests for state houses and governor’s mansions with major implications for democracy itself.

Millions of Americans have already voted; millions more will do so today. New York Times reporters are on the ground across the country and will report on developments throughout the day and night.

Read the live updates at The New York Times

Charlie Pierce: This Time the Robber Barons Came for Democracy

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire
When I was living and going to school in Milwaukee back in the early 1970s, Uihlein was one of those names that seemed always to be in the atmosphere, in which, I might add, it shared space with yeast and hops and the sweet, enveloping aroma of the Ambrosia Chocolate Company. On hot summer days, the air was a riot of industrial bouquets, and none of them was perfumed (the component parts of beer smell even worse than beer does when it’s run through a human being. I’m just saying).
 

Anyway, the Uihlein name was all over the place, like Schroeder or Pabst. It was most prominently featured on the city’s Uihlein Center For The Performing Arts (since 1994, it’s been the Marcus Center For The Performing Arts, but there’s still a Uihlein Hall inside). The Uihleins have bankrolled more than theaters, however. Even before the Supreme Court’s ill-starred decision in Citizens United v. SEC, the Uihleins—and their money—were deeply involved in conservative politics.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

StephCast M 11-7-22

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Trump considered announcing 2024 presidential run at Oz-Mastriano rally

According to a source familiar with the discussions and in frequent communication with former President Trump, Mr. Trump considered Saturday’s rally in Pennsylvania as a backdrop to announce a run for President in 2024. 

This source said his advisers urged him not to, saying it could take attention away from the candidates on the ballot on Tuesday.

Ultimately the former president agreed. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Obama and Trump battle over western Pennsylvania with dueling rallies in a final midterm push for the critical state

vote ballot election
vote ballot

Two former presidents duked it out with dueling rallies Saturday across western Pennsylvania, where they stumped for Senate candidates locked in one of the most consequential races of the cycle and offered wildly different visions of America as the final midterm fight centers on the Keystone State.

Around noon, Barack Obama rallied with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate nominee, along with Democratic candidates in local House races on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus. Hours later, Donald Trump campaigned with Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz, GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, and down-ballot Republicans at a regional airport in Latrobe, about an hour east of Pittsburgh.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Basic Guide to the U.S. Midterm Elections

Vote Election Ballot
Vote Election Ballot

If you are broadly aware that the upcoming midterm elections in the United States have major global implications, but you’re not up to speed on the American system of government or you’re having trouble following along, you’re in the right place.

In the United States’ two-party system, control of two crucial bodies of government — the Senate and the House of Representatives — is essential for getting laws made, and it will be decided by a vote on Nov. 8. Democrats currently control both bodies and the presidency, and losing either the House or the Senate to Republicans would significantly decrease Democrats’ power in the next two years of President Biden’s term.

Read the guide at The New York Times

Comedian Kathy Griffin suspended from Twitter after mocking CEO Elon Musk

Twitter

Comedian Kathy Griffin’s Twitter account was suspended Sunday, the same day she changed her page’s title to “Elon Musk” and mocked the new CEO.

It wasn’t clear whether the suspension was permanent or a direct result of her mockery. It came as Musk announced that accounts that impersonate celebrities and other notables would be prohibited unless they’re labeled “parody.”

Twitter’s policy has always prohibited impersonation, but the immediate action is new.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: Barack Obama Calls Crazy “Crazy” and We Need More of That

The Rude Pundit
The Rude Pundit

We needed Barack Obama to lay it all out for us: “Imagine if you hire your plumber. You’ve got an overflowing toilet. It’s a problem,” he said during a rally in Michigan. “[The plumber] comes in and, you know, you’re waiting for the toilet to be fixed. He starts, ‘Have you heard about the latest conspiracy of the Lizard People?’ and he starts talking to you about all this stuff. ‘We gotta do something about that.’ You’d be like, ‘No no no, I just want you to fix my toilet.’ You’d find another plumber.” 

What Obama has done as he crosses the country for Democratic candidates in tight races is to say that crazy motherfuckers are crazy motherfuckers and we need to say they’re crazy motherfuckers and stop acting like their crazy motherfucking is in any way valid. In that Michigan speech, Obama brought up how Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s opponent, Republican Tudor Dixon (which sounds like what you’d call a shitty mobile home park to make it sound fancy) said in 2020 that Democrats are trying to topple the U.S. government and control people through Covid-19 restrictions because they lost the Civil War. Obama exclaimed, “Now first of all…what?” And then he turned to the laughing crowd and gave a confused/concerned smirk, adding, “Wha…what?” The “the fuck” is implied. He continued, “I mean, I know some people go down these rabbit holes on the internet. They’re up too late. But that’s like a subway tunnel. That’s deep. That’s the darkest rabbit hole I’ve ever seen.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog..,

SMHH VideoCast with Kimberley Johnson & Ali Velshi 11-4-22

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Judge grants independent monitor to oversee Trump Organization, in major victory for NY AG

Trump Tower Chicago
Trump Tower Chicago

A New York judge has approved a preliminary injunction and an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization in an order that follows several hours of oral arguments Thursday.

The judge chided the Trump defense team for failing to submit “an iota of evidence” that would rebut the New York attorney general’s allegations of “comprehensive demonstration of persistent fraud” within the Trump Organization.

In deciding to appoint a monitor to supervise parts of former President Donald Trump’s business and grant a preliminary injunction to stop, what the attorney general’s office described as “ongoing fraudulent activities,” Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump has “demonstrated propensity” to engage in fraud, specifically calling out the overvaluation of Trump’s New York City apartment.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Biden puts economic record front and center at New Mexico midterms rally

Biden Harris
Biden Harris

President Joe Biden gave a forceful defense of his economic record Thursday at a rally in the final days before the midterm elections, warning that Republicans are backing policies that would gut the social safety net families need for retirement and health care.

Speaking at a campaign event for Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Biden struck a populist chord, blaming big oil companies for high gas prices and the pharmaceutical industry for making prescription drugs tough to afford.

He also singled out Republican lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia for benefiting from pandemic relief loans aimed at businesses as they criticized his plan to forgive student loan debt.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Paul Pelosi Released From Hospital After Being Attacked At San Francisco Home

San Francisco Skyline Dark
San Francisco Skyline Dark

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was released from the hospital Thursday, six days after an assailant broke into their San Francisco home and struck him in the head with a hammer, her office said.

“The Pelosi family is thankful for the beautiful outpouring of love, support and prayers from around the world,” the speaker said in a statement Thursday. “Paul is grateful to the 911 operator, emergency responders, trauma care team, ICU staff, and the entire ZSFGH medical staff for their excellent and compassionate life-saving treatment he received after the violent assault in our home.”

Pelosi said her husband remained under doctors’ care and was beginning a “long recovery process and convalescence” after he underwent surgery for a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Oprah Throws Support Behind Fetterman In Pennsylvania Senate Race, Abandoning Oz

Pennsylvania Seal
Pennsylvania Seal

Oprah Winfrey threw her support behind Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman in his race for a U.S. Senate seat on Thursday, a major loss for his Republican competitor, Mehmet Oz.

Winfrey made the comments during a virtual voting event with community leaders Thursday, part of her OWN Your Vote initiative to encourage Black women to participate in elections.

“If I lived in Pennsylvania, I would’ve already cast my vote for John Fetterman, for many reasons,” Winfrey said during the Zoom call, The 19th News’ Jan Staley reported.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

StephCast Th 11-3-22

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Parkland school shooter sentenced to life in prison without parole after emotional victims’ statements

gavel courtroom trial
gavel courtroom trial

A Florida judge formally sentenced Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz to life in prison without parole Wednesday for the 2018 campus massacre that killed 14 students and three staff members.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer followed the jury’s recommendation to spare Cruz, 24, the death penalty, instead sentencing him to a lifetime behind bars.

Last month, in a 9-3 vote, a jury leaned toward sending Cruz to death row, but Florida law dictates that anything less than a unanimous vote automatically shifts the sentence to life without parole.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Capitol Police had a camera feed of Pelosi’s home during attack, but no one was monitoring it

blue light police siren

U.S. Capitol Police had a camera feed showing the outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-Calif., home in San Francisco during the attack on her husband Friday, but no one was monitoring it at the time, two sources familiar with the situation said.

The camera is one of about 1,800 at the Capitol complex and around the country that the Capitol Police have the ability to monitor. The Washington Post first reported no one was actively watching the camera feed when the break-in occurred early Friday morning.

Pelosi’s home is monitored full time when she is there, however. “She is the mission,” one of the sources told NBC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Bedeviled by high inflation, Federal Reserve hikes interest rate by 0.75% again

graph poll
graph poll

Battling inflation that remains at four-decade highs, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday it hiked its key interest rate by another 0.75%.

“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures,” the Fed said in its statement Wednesday. It added it is “strongly committed to returning inflation to its 2% objective.” 

The rate hikes this year have unfolded against the backdrop of a consumer price index that has remained elevated. In September, it clocked in at 8.2% on an annual basis. Food and energy price increases were higher. Even stripped of those two items, whose price swings tend to be more volatile, the index saw its largest increase since 1982.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden calls midterms a ‘defining moment’ for democracy amid political violence and voter intimidation

Biden speech flag
Biden speech flag

President Joe Biden said Wednesday the midterms are a “defining moment” for democracy as threats of political violence and voter intimidation loom over the upcoming elections.

In closing remarks days before the midterms, Biden again called election deniers an existential threat to democracy, tying the Jan. 6 insurrection to last week’s attack on Paul Pelosi. Prosecutors have said that the alleged attacker was looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., when he attacked her husband with a hammer.

“We must with an overwhelming voice stand against political violence and voter intimidation, period. Stand up and speak against it,” Biden said in a roughly 20-minute speech near the Capitol. “We don’t settle our differences in America with a riot, a mob or a bullet or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the ballot box. We have to be honest with ourselves, though. We have to face this problem. We can’t turn away from it. We can’t pretend it’s just going to solve itself.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 11-2-22

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro doesn’t concede election but authorizes transition

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday did not concede the election he lost to leftist Lula da Silva in a brief speech that marked his first comments since results were released two days ago.

But afterward, Chief-of-Staff Ciro Nogueira told reporters that Bolsonaro has authorized him to begin the transition process.

Bolsonaro’s address didn’t mention election results, but he said he will continue to follow the rules of the nation’s constitution.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court declines to block subpoena of Lindsey Graham in Georgia election probe

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to quash a grand jury subpoena in a Georgia prosecutor’s probe of allegations of interference in the 2020 presidential election.

The decision is a victory for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office is investigating phone calls Graham made to Georgia election officials at a time when then-President Donald Trump was contesting the result. As a result, the subpoena can now be enforced, although Graham could refuse to answer questions by invoking his right against self-incrimination under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.

The decision means Graham could face questioning as soon as Nov. 17, according to his lawyer’s court filings.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack allegedly told police he was on ‘suicide mission’ with more targets

San Francisco Skyline Dark
San Francisco Skyline Dark

The man accused of brutally attacking the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told police officers at the scene that he was on “a suicide mission” and had additional targets, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

The new details came shortly after California prosecutors charged David DePape, 42, with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary, false imprisonment and threatening a public official in connection with Friday’s attack on Paul Pelosi.

DePape, who appeared in state court Tuesday, pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 11-1-22

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Trump asks Supreme Court to block release of tax records to House Democrats

Trump Dumb
Trump Dumb

Former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to block a congressional committee from accessing his tax records as a long-running legal battle reaches its final stage.

Trump, who, unlike other recent presidents, refused to make his tax returns public amid scrutiny of his business affairs, turned to the justices after an appeals court in Washington refused to intervene. The court has recently rejected similar requests made by Trump.

Trump’s lawyers say the House Ways and Means Committee’s assertion that it needed the information to probe how the IRS conducts the auditing process for presidents did not stand up to scrutiny.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

‘Greed and cheating’: Prosecutor outlines tax fraud allegations against Trump Organization

Trump Tower Chicago
Trump Tower Chicago

Opening arguments began Monday in the high-profile criminal tax fraud case against the Trump Organization, the former president’s family-run company that helped make him a household name.

“This case is about greed and cheating,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger told jurors in her opening statement about what she alleged was a “clever scheme.”

Two corporations that are a part of the company, Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., “paid their already highly paid executives even more by cheating on their taxes,” Hoffinger said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court leans toward ending affirmative action in college admissions

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Conservative Supreme Court justices indicated Monday that they are willing to end the explicit consideration of race in college admissions as they weighed cases challenging affirmative action policies at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.

Members of the court’s conservative majority questioned the legal rationale for allowing the practice and probed to what extent colleges and universities could enact new “race neutral” admissions policies aimed at improving racial diversity. Some justices, however, indicated they would be willing to allow applicants to discuss their racial identities in some form as part of essays touching upon their experiences, such as examples of overcoming discrimination.

Liberal justices, who are in the minority, defended the use of race in admissions, citing the importance of diversity on campus and the difficulty of achieving it without any consideration of race.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Suspect in Paul Pelosi attack planned to break House speaker’s kneecaps, DOJ says in filing charges

San Francisco Skyline Dark
San Francisco Skyline Dark

State and federal authorities announced criminal charges Monday against the suspect in Friday’s brutal attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., which is alleged to have included plans to break the speaker’s kneecaps.

Federal prosecutors charged the suspect, David DePape, 42, with attempted kidnapping and assault with intent to retaliate against a federal official by threatening or injuring a family member.

Hours later, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced state charges, including attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder and threats to a public official and their family.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: Well, America, You Were a Nice Idea While You Lasted

It was this weekend that I finally gave up. I have watched the steady descent of American conservatism—and its primary public vehicle, the Republican Party—into the terminal depths of the prion disease it acquired when Ronald Reagan and Richard Viguerie and Jerry Falwell first fed it the monkey-brains back in the late 1970s when I was just starting out in this racket. 

I mocked it and inveighed against it. Better people than I—Dave Neiwert, Chip Berlet, the SPLC—went out in the field, took good notes, and have spent four decades warning us what was coming unless the prion disease was kept in check. Too many people in a position to do so bailed on the task: the Republicans, because the prion disease was flourishing on the radio and winning them elections; and the Democrats, because they were too polite, or too naive, or too…something to care. (Some Democrats, worse ones, even tried to break off some of the people in whom the prion disease was raging.)

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

StephCast M 10-31-22

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The Rude Pundit: They Once Blew Up a Classroom Over Textbooks, So, Yeah, There Will Be Violence

The Rude Pundit
The Rude Pundit

In 1974, in West Virginia, protesters used dynamite and Molotov cocktails against the buildings of their enemies. The protesters were upset that the Board of Education of Kanawha County voted to update the textbooks in the district’s language arts classes to include more modern authors in an effort to be more inclusive and multiracial. Kanawha County is the biggest in the state, and it includes the capital, Charleston. A fundamentalist Christian member of the board, Alice Moore, discovered that some of the new books included profanity, sex, evolution, and Freud. Oh, they also contained works by Black activists like Malcom X. Moore said that she was upset that the new books would teachAmerican history in a way that “unduly favoring Blacks.” Yeah, the connections to the current fuckery over curriculum in schools are that blatant. 

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

Democrats criticize GOP after attack on Pelosi’s husband: ‘Many people have stayed silent’

Washington Dc Capitol
Washington Dc Capitol

Some Democrats criticized Republicans after the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, accusing their colleagues across the aisle of failing to sufficiently condemn violent rhetoric targeting lawmakers.

“Many people have stayed silent during this time — not Liz Cheney, not Adam Kinzinger within their own party,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” referring to two GOP lawmakers on the House Jan. 6 committee.

“I think it is really important that people realize that it is not just this moment of this horrific attack but that we have seen violence perpetrated throughout our political system,” she said. “And there are several things we can do from the security standpoint. … But it is also about making sure we don’t add more election deniers to our political system.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Elon Musk, new owner of Twitter, tweets unfounded anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi attack

Twitter

Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, tweeted and deleted an unfounded anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory Sunday morning about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband from a website that has a history of publishing false information.

Musk responded to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she tweeted out a Los Angeles Times story about how David DePape, the suspect in the attack on Paul Pelosi, had spread far-right conspiracy theories.

Clinton tweeted the link to that story along with the message: “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories. It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Suspect in Pelosi home invasion attack had zip ties, duct tape: Sources

San Francisco Skyline Dark
San Francisco Skyline Dark

The suspect arrested in the violent home invasion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco residence and the hammer attack on her 82-year-old husband, was carrying a bag that contained duct tape and zip ties, two law enforcement officials briefed on the probe told ABC News Sunday.

Investigators discovered the contents of the bag that suspect David Depape had with him at the time of the attack, after securing the necessary search warrants to open it, the sources said

The zip ties, in particular, echoed what multiple suspects in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington were carrying, including some who made it inside the building as they searched for officials, including Pelosi, in order to take them captive, officials said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Leftist Lula wins Brazil presidential election, ends far-right Bolsonaro era for now

vote ballot election
vote ballot

Leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated his bitter rival, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, to secure his return as Brazil’s leader Sunday after a tightly fought race in the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

The country’s Superior Electoral Court verified the win.

The court said da Silva secured slightly more than 50.84% of the vote, with 99.10% of votes counted, in a runoff election that was held after neither candidate got enough support to win outright this month.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

SMHH VideoCast 10-28-22 with Jill Wine-Banks & DNC Chair Jaime Harrison

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StephCast F 10-28-22

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Jan. 6 rioter who dragged Michael Fanone into crowd sentenced to 7.5 years in prison

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

A Jan. 6 rioter who dragged former Washington, D.C., Police Officer Michael Fanone into the crowd on the steps of the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 7.5 years in federal prison Thursday.

Albuquerque Head, 43, of Tennessee, was sentenced to 90 months in federal prison, a bit shy of the 96 months prosecutors had requested but still one of the longest sentences to date in the Capitol riot cases. Head will get credit for the roughly 18 months he has spent locked up already.

Fanone urged U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Head to the maximum, saying Head had cut his career in law enforcement short. Fanone suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury in the assault on Jan. 6, 2021, and ended up resigning from the Metropolitan Police Department.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal appeals court denies Trump effort to keep tax records from House committee

Trump Dumb
Trump Dumb

A federal appeals court on Thursday denied former President Donald Trump‘s latest attempt to prevent a congressional committee from accessing his tax records.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., denied the effort after a three-judge panel of the court unanimously ruled in August that the House Ways and Means Committee is allowed to obtain Trump’s tax records after years of effort to secure them.

Trump can appeal Thursday’s ruling to the Supreme Court. His lawyers have indicated in previous filings that they would appeal to the high court if the appeals court denied his request for a hearing.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Elon Musk now leading Twitter, ushering in likely changes to online speech

Elon Musk is now leading Twitter, according to CNBC.

Two top Twitter executives, CEO Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, were also out, CNBC reported.

Musk first made his $44 billion offer to acquire the social media platform in April, then sought to pull out of the deal weeks later over concerns about its volume of fake and spam accounts. Twitter ultimately sued Musk for breaching the original agreement, and Musk countersued, alleging fraud.

The two sides had been scheduled to meet in a Delaware courtroom this month to settle the dispute before Musk resubmitted his original $44 billion offer, without explanation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast TH 10-27-22

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Herschel Walker denies 2nd woman’s claim that he paid for her abortion: ‘Lie’

Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker

Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Wednesday denied an unnamed woman’s new claim that in Dallas in 1993 he paid for and strongly encouraged her to have an abortion that she did not want.

The woman, only identified as Jane Doe, made her accusation at a video news conference hosted from Los Angeles by her attorney, Gloria Allred. The woman was not shown on camera and said that she feared reprisal if she revealed her true name or her face.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, Walker said, “I’m done with this foolishness. This is all a lie, and I will not entertain any of it.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Mark Meadows ordered to testify before grand jury in Georgia election probe

gavel courtroom trial
gavel courtroom trial

A South Carolina judge ruled Wednesday that Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows must testify before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating possible interference in the 2020 presidential election.

At a hearing Wednesday morning, South Carolina Circuit Judge Edward Miller ruled that Meadows must comply with a petition seeking his testimony before the grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, the clerk of court for Pickens County, South Carolina, told NBC News.

Meadows, who lives in South Carolina, has tried to avoid testifying before the grand jury probe into possible election interference by then-President Donald Trump and his allies. An attorney for Meadows did not immediately reply to messages seeking comment.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 10-26-22

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Biden Urges Americans To Get Vaccinated Ahead Of Winter COVID-19 Surge

Vaccine mRNA Pfizer Moderna
Vaccine mRNA Pfizer Moderna

President Joe Biden received the updated COVID-19 vaccine live on television Tuesday, urging Americans to protect themselves against the virus ahead of the anticipated winter surge but stopping short of encouraging mask-wearing.

Biden received the latest vaccine targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the omicron strain, the current versions of COVID-19 that are most prevalent in the country and globally. Public health officials in the U.S. recommend people over the age of 5 get the updated vaccine once a year — with the exception that the elderly and immunocompromised may need more than one shot annually.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Hope Hicks, a longtime Trump aide, interviewing with Jan. 6 committee

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

Hope Hicks, who served as a top adviser to former President Donald Trump, is interviewing with the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, a source familiar told NBC News.

The Jan. 6 committee declined to provide a comment or any additional details. Hicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hicks served in multiple senior roles in Trump’s White House for much of his presidency. She left the White House six days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, on Jan. 12, after serving as a counselor to the president. She had previously served as White House communications director as well as director of strategic communications. Prior to her stints at the White House, Hicks worked for Trump’s presidential campaign, the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

One hour with Fetterman and Oz: Key takeaways from their only debate

Pennsylvania Seal
Pennsylvania Seal

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz met Tuesday night for the only debate of what’s become perhaps the most important Senate race in the country this year — one that could determine partisan control of the chamber.

Recent independent polling has shown a tight race between Fetterman, the Democratic nominee, and Oz, a Republican doctor best known for his long-syndicated TV show.

A showdown like Tuesday’s, clips from which are sure to be played on local news and in paid TV ads in a state that already has seen tens of millions of dollars’ worth of political commercials, could move the race.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 10-25-22

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Biden delivers midterms pep talk: ‘If we get people out to vote, we win’

President Joe Biden visited the Democratic Party’s Washington headquarters Monday to deliver a pep talk to volunteers just 15 days until the midterms end.

“If we get people out to vote, we win,” Biden said as he walked among the volunteers at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. “We get people out to vote, we win and you’re getting them out to vote.”

Biden told the volunteers, as well as staffers and grassroots donors, that “the power is in your hands” to “get out the vote.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

2022 ELECTION Crist to DeSantis: Will you run for president? Florida governor refuses to say in caustic debate

Democrat Charlie Crist came to his first and only debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ready with just one question about his opponent’s political aspirations Monday night.

“You’re running for governor,” Crist said, looking at DeSantis as the governor looked forward. “Why don’t you look in the eyes of the people of the state of Florida and say to them if you’re re-elected, you will serve a full four-year term as governor. Yes or no?”

DeSantis said nothing as four seconds ticked by and the debate hall started to fall quiet.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Justice Clarence Thomas temporarily blocks Lindsey Graham’s testimony in Georgia election interference probe

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, tells reporters that he will push for a vote in Congress to kick the Palestinian Liberation Organization out of its Washington offices and threaten to withhold U.S. financial assistance if the Palestinians seek to use enhanced U.N. status against Israel, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday temporarily put on hold a requirement that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., testify in a Georgia prosecutor’s probe of allegations of interference in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

The decision by Thomas, who handles emergency requests that arise from Georgia, freezes the litigation while the justices weigh Graham’s plea that the Supreme Court quash the subpoena. Thomas had asked lawyers for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to respond to Graham’s request by close of business Thursday. Thomas can handle the application by himself, although generally such issues get referred to the full nine-justice court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: The GOP Assault on the Vote Is About to Come to a Boil

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire

It’s all coming together in Arizona, and the Supreme Court should be so very proud. Its Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association are fitting so neatly in tandem with its rulings in Shelby County and Brnovich, as the personal right to bear arms dovetails with the increased constitutionality of voter suppression—twin sons from different motherfckers.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics.

StephCast M 10-24-22

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Jury selection to begin in Trump Organization fraud trial

Golden Gavel Court
Golden Gavel Court

Jury selection is set to begin Monday in the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump’snamesake family real-estate business, which was charged last year by prosecutors in Manhattan with orchestrating a years-long scheme to evade taxes.

The Trump Organization compensated certain executives with off-the-book perks — including rent, utilities and garage expenses at a luxury apartment building, private school tuition, and leases for luxury cars — that were never accounted for on the company’s payroll taxes, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Student debt relief ‘moving full speed ahead’ despite GOP-led lawsuits, education secretary says

Graduation Cap College High School
Graduation Cap College High School

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the Biden administration is “moving full speed ahead” preparing to implement its federal student debt forgiveness program, a day after a federal appeals courthit pause on the administration’s efforts.

Cardona said in a video posted Saturday that the administration is “not deterred” by lawsuits that seek to block its relief program.

In an op-ed published Saturday in USA Today, Cardona said the Education Department is “moving full speed ahead with preparations for the lawful implementation” of the program.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jan. 6 panel will not rule out taking live testimony from Trump, Cheney says

Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Sunday did not rule out the possibility of the House Jan. 6 committee’s taking live televised testimony from former President Donald Trump.

Trump has not publicly indicated how he would respond to the subpoena the committee issued Friday for his testimony and documents.

Asked whether the committee is open to live testimony in an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Cheney, its vice chair, said: “He’s not going to turn this into a circus.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: The Questions Republican Candidates Aren’t Being Asked Enough (or At All)

We know that if Republicans win back even one house of Congress, the whole place will become a nightmare of masturbating clowns, all cackling wildly as they rub and tug their greasepainted genitals to a screaming spurt and then declare they’re ride-or-die Americans just engaged in old-fashioned horseplay to own the libs. Unfortunately, not enough attention has been paid to just how fucking insane that is. The typical Democrat will say, “Republicans will take away your abortion rights and destroy democracy.” What they need to add is “and they’re scary clowns jacking off on the Constitution.” 

I don’t think that most Americans really understand that part. Sure, we here on the musky Twitter machine have that awareness, but we are not most Americans. While the moderators of the debates I’ve seen or read about do ask if the Republican accepts that Joe Biden won the 2020 election or if the Republican will accept the results of the 2022 election, voters need to know what they’re getting with the GOP candidates. Because, see, it sure as shit seems as if a lot of voters think that when they vote for Republicans this cycle, they’re trading already tenuous abortion rights for cheaper milk and safer streets. They don’t realize that what they’re really getting is a pack of crazed clowns who will spooge on them after they murder them.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

SMHH VideoCast with Joel Stein & Michael Cohen 10-21-22

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StephCast F 10-21-22

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You Can Still Watch Stephanie Miller’s Sexy Liberal “Save Democracy” Tour on Pay-Per-View!!

The Sexy Liberals and special guests Rob Reiner and Glenn Kirschner were LIVE at Los Angeles’ historic Saban Theater for the last performance of the year! And you can still watch it streaming Live on Pay Per View as many times as you want until the end of the year! This is not hyperbole; sluggish from a raging pandemic, staring down the Big Lie(s), a violent January 6 th attack on the home of democracy, and now, and now..the reversal of Roe..we have been battered and bruised, but Sexy Liberals everywhere are standing up with Stephanie Miller and all her Sexy Liberals to Save Democracy.  Pay-Per-View is just $20 for unlimited viewings until the end of the year!

Tickets and Pay-Per-View (good for unlimited viewings until 12/31/22) available here

What to know about Friday’s sentencing of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress

Steve Bannon
Steve bannon

Steve Bannon, the ex-adviser to former President Donald Trump, will be sentenced on Friday for his criminal contempt of Congress after defying of a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

The sentencing will unfold in a federal courtroom in Washington, DC. Judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – will hand down the penalty in proceedings that will begin at 9 a.m. ET.

The sentencing is a milestone moment in the Justice Department’s response to January 6, as prosecutors say that by “flouting” the committee’s subpoena, Bannon “exacerbated” the assault on the rule of law that the US Capitol attack amounted to. It may also bolster the leverage lawmakers have in securing cooperation of witnesses resistant to participating in congressional investigations.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Justice Amy Coney Barrett denies attempt to block Biden student loan forgiveness plan from taking effect

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected a challenge to the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program on Thursday, declining to take up an appeal brought by a Wisconsin taxpayers group.

The order is a win for President Joe Biden for now, though there are other challenges in the pipeline making their way up to the high court.

Student loan cancellations, worth up to $20,000 per eligible borrower, could begin on Sunday.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Appeals court orders Sen. Lindsey Graham to testify in Georgia election probe

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., must testify before a Georgia grand jury examining possible election interference in the state two years ago.

The ruling is a win for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and comes the same day NBC News confirmed that Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified before the grand jury. Cipollone’s appearance was first reported by CNN.

Graham has fought tooth-and-nail to avoid testifying. He filed suit in federal court seeking to quash a subpoena seeking details about phone calls he made to top election officials in Georgia amid complaints from then-President Donald Trump that there had been widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Biden announces sale of 15 million barrels of reserve oil

oil well refinery
oil well refinery

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he would authorize the sale of more oil from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve as his administration scrambles to rein in high gas prices before the midterm elections.

Speaking at the White House, Biden said the Energy Department would sell the remaining 15 million barrels of the 180 million barrels that were authorized for sale in March — a move that he argued would help drive down the price of gas and give families a bit of “breathing room.”

“I have been doing everything in my power to reduce gas prices since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine caused these prices to spike and rattled international oil markets,” Biden said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Omicron subvariants reflect a ‘viral evolution on steroids’

covid coronavirus
covid coronavirus

An omicron subvariant is once again demonstrating immune-dodging abilities, posing a threat to both vaccinated and previously infected individuals.

A report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the subvariant, called BA.4.6, could drive reinfections.

As of Friday, BA.4.6 accounted for just over 12% of new Covid casesin the U.S. BA.5, meanwhile, has been detected in nearly 68% of new cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Oath Keeper testifies he was ready to die on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in office

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

A member of the far-right Oath Keepers who stormed the U.S. Capitol testified that he was ready to fight to keep President Donald Trump in office and was preparing himself in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, to say goodbye to his family, he testified in a seditious conspiracy trial Tuesday.

Jason Dolan, 46, a military veteran, pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy and a count of obstruction of an official proceeding in September and testified in the trial of five other members of the extremist group under a cooperation agreement with the government.

Other cooperating defendants are also expected to testify in the trial. Dolan has not pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy; three other Oath Keepers have.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump signed legal documents that he knew included false voter fraud numbers, judge says

Documents Papers Stack
Documents Papers Stack

Former president Donald Trump and his political allies understood that their allegations of widespread voter fraud in Georgia were baseless but continued to push the unfounded claims in courts and the public, according to recent federal court filings.

The revelations came in an 18-page opinion Wednesday over Trump ally and conservative lawyer John Eastman’s resistance to a subpoena for emails from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter found that several documents between Trump’s allies must be made public, as they showed that the group participated in a “knowing misrepresentation of voter fraud numbers in Georgia when seeking to overturn the election results in federal court.”

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post

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Trump Special Master Says He Has ‘No Patience’ for Records Spats

Trump Classified Documents
Trump Classified Documents

The special master reviewing documents seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate warned the former president’s lawyers that their initial efforts to claim certain records were personal and not presidential might be lacking enough detail.

“Where’s the beef? I need some beef,” US District Senior Judge Raymond Dearie told the attorneys during a telephone status hearing Tuesday.

Dearie also suggested there was a “certain incongruity” to Trump’s lawyers claiming so far that at least one document was both personal to Trump and covered by executive privilege, a protection that applies to government information.

Read the rest of the story at Bloomberg

Former Oath Keeper Says Militia Planned to Use ‘Any Means Necessary’ on Jan. 6

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

A former member of the Oath Keepers militia testified on Tuesday that the far-right group intended to block the certification of the 2020 election “by any means necessary,” stashing weapons in a hotel in Virginia on Jan. 6, 2021, in anticipation of supporting President Donald J. Trump in his bid to keep Joseph R. Biden Jr. out of the White House.

The former Oath Keeper, Jason Dolan, gave his account at the seditious conspiracy trial of the organization’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, telling the jury that the group envisioned a battle breaking out in Washington that day between factions loyal to Mr. Trump and others loyal to Mr. Biden.

“My thinking was you would have portions of federal government that would side with President Trump and parts that would side with President Biden,” Mr. Dolan said.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Police Videos Show Shock and Fear as DeSantis Begins Arrests For Alleged Voter Fraud: ‘I Voted But I Didn’t Commit No Fraud’

The Tampa Bay Times published video of several Floridians being arrested for voter fraud as part of Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s new Office of Election Crimes and Security crackdown.

The arrests of 20 people took place on August 18th, hours before DeSantis called a press conference to boast of the crackdown, declaring, “They’re going to pay the price.”

“Our new election crimes office has sprung into action to hold individuals accountable for voter fraud. Today’s actions send a clear signal to those who are thinking about ballot harvesting or fraudulently voting. If you commit an elections crime, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said DeSantis during the press conference, making clear the office’s work will continue.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Biden vows to push abortion rights bill if Democrats keep control of Congress

Biden speech flag
Biden speech flag

President Joe Biden pledged Tuesday to push for an abortion rightsbill if Democrats keep control of Congress in the November midterm elections.

Speaking at a Democratic National Committee event in Washington, Biden said that if Democrats both hold the House and add seats to their Senate majority, he would offer make a bill to codify abortion rights his first priority. He said that if it passed, he would aim to sign it into law by the 50th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in January.

“If you care about the right to choose, then you got to vote. That’s why these midterm elections are so critical — elect more Democratic senators to the United States Senate and more Democrats to keep control of the House of Representatives,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 10-18-22

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Debating once again, Kemp and Abrams paint drastically different pictures of Georgia

georgia

Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams faced off on Monday, laying out drastically different views of the state ahead of their rematch at the polls.

The debate, hosted by the Atlanta Press Club, allowed both candidates to detail their platforms, which focused on the state’s economy, crime and voting rights.

Kemp spent most of the night touting his accomplishments via the legislature and struck a tone of positivity after what he called a first term of positive work.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance attack each other over ‘great replacement’ theory in final Ohio Senate debate

Ohio Flag
Ohio Flag

The already hostile Senate race in Ohioturned even nastier Monday as Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. Vance clashed over racist rhetoric and lobbed personal insults.

At their final debate before the Nov. 8 election, tensions ran highest toward the end of their hour onstage, when one of the moderators asked the candidates about the “great replacement” theory.

The conspiracy theory, which has found a home on the far-right fringes, broadly states that a Jewish-led cabal of liberals is trying to take power by replacing white voters with nonwhites by any means necessary, including immigration and interracial marriage.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden administration officially opens application for student debt cancellation

Graduation Cap College High School
Graduation Cap College High School

President Joe Biden announced Monday that the online application to cancel federal student debt is available.

The form — which can be found at StudentAid.gov — is available in English and Spanish, and it is accessible on both mobile and desktop devices. The form asks for people’s dates of birth, Social Security numbers and contact information. Applicants do not have to upload any documents.

In a speech at the White House, Biden said it takes less than five minutes to fill out the form. “It’s easy, simple and fast. And it’s a new day for millions of Americans all across our nation,” he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump Organization charged Secret Service as much as $1,185 per night to stay at Trump properties

dollars money bills
dollars money bills

During Donald Trump’s presidency, Trump hotels charged the Secret Service as much as $1,185 per night, more than five times the recommended government rate, and the high rates continued after he left office, according to an investigation released Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Beginning in January 2017 through Sept. 15, 2021, the Secret Service received at least 40 waivers to let it spend more than the recommended per diem rates to stay at Trump properties to protect Trump as a president and former president, and also to protect those around him, the investigation found.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: America Has a Long History of Fumbling Its Democracy

I shouldn’t be dreading Election Day the way I am. Or at least not for the reasons for which I’m dreading it. I have dreaded Election Days before, but I dreaded them because I dreaded the outcome—the traditional American reason for dreading Election Days. And for the most part, the Election Days I dreaded for that reason were elections worth dreading: Nixon (twice), Reagan (twice), George W. (once, the second term; I didn’t know enough about him in 2000). And Lord knows both 2016 and 2020 filled my brain with snakes and dragons. 
 

But as we approach this Election Day, I’m dreading it for an entirely new reason. A reason I thought we’d left behind with Tammany Hall in the North and with the Klan in the South. I’m dreading the actual act of voting, all over the country.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

StephCast M 10-17-22

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StephCast M 10-17-22

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U.S. Asks Court to End Special Master Review of Files Seized From Trump

The Justice Department asked an appeals court on Friday to end a special master review of thousands of documents that the F.B.I. seized from former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida estate, arguing that a federal judge had been wrong to intervene in its investigation into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive government records.

In a 53-page brief for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, the Justice Department broadly challenged the legal legitimacy of orders last month by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who blocked investigators from using the materials and appointed an independent arbiter to sift them for any that are potentially privileged or Mr. Trump’s personal property.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Herschel Walker defends use of ‘honorary’ sheriff’s badge in Georgia Senate debate

Herschel Walker Badge
Herschel Walker Badge

Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker defended pulling out a sheriff’s badge during Friday’s closely watched debate in Georgia, telling NBC in an interview that aired on Sunday it was “a legit,” but honorary badge from his hometown sheriff’s department.

Walker had pulled out the badge during a discussion over support for police – in a move that was admonished by the debate moderators and led to widespread mockery from Democrats.

“This is from my hometown. This is from Johnson County from the sheriff from Johnson County, which is a legit badge,” Walker told NBC’s Kristen Welker in a clip from the interview.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Russia hits Kyiv with new ‘kamikaze’ drone attack

Israel Gaza Palestine Missiles War
Israel Gaza Palestine Missiles War

Russia blasted the Ukrainian capital with a wave of “kamikaze” drones Monday in a renewed attack just a week after unleashing a deadly barrage against civilian and infrastructure targets across the country.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said “kamikaze” drones caused four explosions that rocked the city’s central Shevchenkivskyi District in the early morning hours.

Klitschko initially said the drone attack caused a fire in a nonresidential building, but he later said a residential building in the district was also hit, with 18 people rescued from it.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump attacks American Jews, says they must ‘get their act together’ on Israel ‘before it’s too late’

Former President Donald Trump attacked Jews in the U.S. on his Truth Social platform Sunday, writing that they need to “get their act together” and “appreciate” Israel “before it is too late.”

“No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S.,” Trump wrote.

“Those living in Israel, though, are a different story — Highest approval rating in the World, could easily be P.M.!” he continued.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: The Patriotic Case for Jailing Donald Trump

The Rude Pundit
The Rude Pundit

Thursday’s hearing by the January 6 Committee was clarifying in the way that a great closing argument at a trial can be, pulling together threads that had previously come up and demonstrating how someone is guilty of the crime or crimes they’ve been accused of. What is so absolutely glisteningly clear is that Donald Trump, while President of the United States (a thing that really did happen), tried to overturn a legitimate election he had lost. What’s more, he knew that he had lost the election and he knew that the election had been legitimate. What’s more, he knew ahead of time how the voting was going to go for the election, that mail-in ballots, the number of which surged because voters were encouraged to vote by mail during the pandemic, would be counted later and break towards Biden. Because he knew this, he planned, with others, in advance to say he had won, even if he had lost, and then to fight it out to the bitter end, making everything that came after premeditated.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

SMHH VideoCast with Tristan Snell & Judy Gold 10-14-22

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StephCast F 10-14-22

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Jan. 6 Committee Votes to Subpoena Trump – ‘He’s Required to Answer for His Actions’

The Jan. 6 House select committee investigating the 2021 Capitol insurrection voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump during its final public hearing on Thursday.

Near the end of the hearing, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) stated the committee had clearly demonstrated Trump tried to overthrow American democracy when he incited an angry mob to storm the Capitol. Trump had spent more than two months falsely telling his supporters the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Read there rest of the story at Mediaite

Parkland school shooter avoids the death penalty after jury recommends life in prison without parole

gavel courtroom trial
gavel courtroom trial

A jury on Thursday spared Parkland, Florida, school shooter Nikolas Cruz from the death penalty, recommending that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 14 students and three staff members dead.

The 12-person jury’s recommendation was read in a packed courtroom before visibly distraught family members and the shooter, who remained blank-faced throughout.

The jury reached its decision after more than a day of deliberations, nearly capping the exhaustive trial that saw jurors review graphic videos and photos from the shooting, tour the high school left practically untouched since the massacre, and hear emotional testimonies of victims’ family members. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Supreme Court rejects Trump’s request in dispute over Mar-a-Lago documents

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

The Supreme Court handed former President Donald Trump a loss Thursday in his dispute with the Justice Department over documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence, rejecting his request that a special master be allowed to review classified papers.

The justices denied Trump’s relatively narrow emergency request in a brief unsigned order. No dissents were noted.

The decision does not affect the Justice Department’s access to the same documents as part of a criminal investigation. The more than 100 documents marked as classified are just a small part of the 11,000 records federal agents seized in August amid concerns that Trump had unlawfully retained official White House records after he left office.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jarring new video, evidence Trump knew he lost: Key takeaways from the latest Jan. 6 hearing

Capitol Washington Inauguration
Capitol Washington Inauguration

While President Donald Trump was refusing to call off the mob of his supporters attacking the Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and other congressional leaders leaped into action to try to retake control of the sprawling complex.

They called the secretary of defense and the acting attorney general and urged them to send help. They called the governors of neighboring Virginia and Maryland to send National Guard troops and other police. And they got on the phone with Vice President Mike Pence to figure out how they could return to the Capitol that same night and finish certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Charlie Pierce: Sen. Ed Markey Keeps Pushing the Feds to Show a Little Spine on DeSantis’ Evil Stunt

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire

Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts always has been a workhorse in the Senate. As a congressman, he was out ahead of most of the rest of his colleagues on the climate crisis, even back when it was “the greenhouse effect.” He also saw the revolution coming in computer science and the internet. His prescience on issues like these is how he won the support of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and others in what might have been a tough primary battle against young Rep. Joseph Kennedy.

On Wednesday, Markey—who obviously counts the good people of Martha’s Vineyard among his constituents—along with several other members of the Massachusetts delegation, got the inspector general’s office of the Department of the Treasury to look into whether or not Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis played fast and loose with federal COVID relief funds to finance his little airplane stunt.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

Ex-Oath Keeper says ‘many weapons’ were stored outside capital during Jan. 6 attack

Guns Bullets Shooting
Gun Bullet Shooting

A former member of the Oath Keepers militia group testified Wednesday about the large stash of weapons stored by the group at a hotel just outside Washington, D.C., during the Jan. 6, 2001, assault on the Capitol, as prosecutors provided more details on the group’s planning and private communications leading up to the attack.

“I had not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” said Terry Cummings, a former member of the group’s Florida chapter who was subpoenaed for his testimony and has not been charged or accused of wrongdoing in connection with Jan. 6.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A Trump employee told the FBI that the former president ordered staff to move boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago

Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago
Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago

One of Donald Trump‘s employees told FBI agents the former president ordered boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago to be moved before federal agents searched the property, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The source also told NBC News that the FBI obtained security video showing people moving boxes out of a storage room at Trump’s Florida estate.

The Washington Post first reported the employee’s account on Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Alex Jones must pay $965 million in damages to families of 8 Sandy Hook victims

gavel courtroom trial
gavel courtroom trial

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $965 million to the families of eight Sandy Hook shooting victims and an FBI agent who responded to the attack for the suffering he caused them by spreading lies on his platforms about the 2012 massacre, a Connecticut jury found on Wednesday.

Jones faced liability for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violations of the state Unfair Trade Practices Act, for creating a fake narrative that the mass shooting was a hoax. The families claimed Jones profited off the lies while they were harassed and abused by those who believed him.

The jury made 15 individual awards that ranged from $28.8 million to $120 million. The families and agent also received separate punitive damages.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Jan. 6 panel set to hold final hearing today before midterm elections

capitol riot insurrection
capitol riot insurrection

The Jan. 6 committee’s ninth and likely final investigative hearing Thursday will feature new testimony and evidence, including Secret Service records and surveillance video.

The hearing, set for 1 p.m. ET, will not include any live witnesses, a committee aide said. And unlike earlier hearings that focused on a specific aspect of the GOP plot to overturn the 2020 election and keep then-President Donald Trump in power, Thursday’s presentation will take a more sweeping view of what happened before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.

“Tomorrow, what we’re going to be doing is taking a step back and we’re going to be looking at that entire plan, the entire multipart plan to overturn the election. We’re going to be looking at it in a broader context and in a broader timeline as well,” a committee aide said on a conference call with reporters on Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast W 10-12-22

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Herschel Walker claims ex-girlfriend, whose identity he says he knows, is lying about abortion

Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker

Senate hopeful Herschel Walker said Tuesday that he now knows the identity of the person alleging that he reimbursed her for the cost of an abortion procedure more than a decade ago, but said he has not spoken to the ex-girlfriend since the news broke and accused her of lying.

“I know nothing about an abortion,” Walker told ABC News anchor Linsey Davis. “I knew it was a lie and I said it was a lie — and I just move on … it’s sad that people say October surprise, but you’re destroying families.”

“This race is too important for me to give up or for me to stop,” he continued. “So, October surprise is not going to faze me.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Kevin McCarthy Reportedly Berated a GOP Colleague and Drove Her to Tears for Speaking About His Jan. 6 Call With Trump

Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy

A pair of new book excerpts show Kevin McCarthy lashing out and under massive pressure from the fallout of Donald Trump’s supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Politico Playbook got an early look at Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind, the upcoming book from New York Times Magazine writer Robert Draper. The book delves into the GOP’s continued subservience to Trump after the 2020 election, and in a chapter called “The Enabler,” it explores the phone call where McCarthy begged Trump to call off his rioting supporters who laid siege to Congress.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Justice Department urges Supreme Court to reject Trump request over seized Mar-a-Lago documents

Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago
Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject former President Donald Trump‘s request to give the special master reviewing documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate access to those marked as classified.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers that Trump would suffer “no harm at all” if the documents are temporarily withheld from the special master. Addressing Trump’s potential ownership stake in the documents, including possible assertions of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege, Prelogar said Trump had “no plausible claims.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden warns there will be ‘consequences’ for Saudi Arabia after oil production cut

oil well refinery
oil well refinery

President Joe Biden warned Tuesday that Saudi Arabia would face “consequences” after OPEC+ last week announced the biggest cut in oil production since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill have condemned the decision by Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the oil-producing alliance, to reduce the global supply of petroleum. Higher oil prices are seen as helping Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter, finance its war in Ukraine.

“There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done with Russia,” Biden said of Saudi Arabia in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be — there will be consequences.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast T 10-11-22

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Trump Lawyers Are Turning on Each Other Over Mar-a-Lago Probe

CHRISTINA BOBB, THE Trump lawyer who in June signed a letter certifying that all of the sensitive material the former president moved from the White House to Mar-a-Lago had been returned, is talking to federal authorities investigating the matter.

The news that Bobb is dishing to the feds, reported initially by NBC News, comes just over two months after the FBI searched Trump’s Palm Beach estate, where they found scores of sensitive, classified documents. This means Bobb’s statement was false, of course. She claims it’s not her fault, though, reportedly telling investigators that one of Trump’s other lawyers, Evan Corcoran, told her to sign it.

Read the rest of the story at Rolling Stone

U.S. airport websites knocked offline in apparent pro-Russia hacking attack

plane airplane flight
plane airplane flight

An apparently coordinated denial-of-service attack organized by pro-Russia hackers rendered the websites of some major U.S. airports unreachable early Monday, though officials said flights were not affected.

The attacks — in which participants flood targets with junk data — were orchestrated by a shadowy group that calls itself Killnet. On the eve of the attacks the group published a target list on its Telegram channel.

While highly visible and aimed at maximum psychological impact, DDoS attacks are mostly a noisy nuisance, different from hacking that involves breaking into networks and can do serious damage.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Secret Service agents were denied when they tried to learn what Jan. 6 info was seized from their personal cellphones

cell phone smartphone
cell phone smartphone

Secret Service agents asked the agency for a record of all of the communications seized from their personal cellphones as part of investigations into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, but were rebuffed, according to a document reviewed by NBC News.

The Secret Service’s office that handles such requests, the Freedom of Information Act Program, denied the request, in which agents invoked the Privacy Act to demand more information about what had been shared from their personal devices.

The request was made in early August, just after news came to light that both Congress and the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general were interested in obtaining text messages of Secret Service agents that had been erased as part of what the agency said was a planned upgrade.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb speaks to federal investigators in Mar-a-Lago case

Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago
Trump Mar-A-Lago Maralago

Christina Bobb, the attorney who signed a letter certifying that all sensitive records in former President Donald Trump’s possession had been returned to the government, spoke to federal investigators Friday and named two other Trump attorneys involved with the case, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The certification statement, signed June 3 by Bobb, indicated that Trump was in compliance with a May grand jury subpoena and no longer had possession of a host of documents with classification markings at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, according to the three sources who do not want to comment publicly because of the sensitive nature of the sprawling federal investigation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast M 10-10-22

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Trump campaigns for Arizona election deniers in a state that will test his power in 2022 and beyond

There is perhaps nowhere in the country where former President Donald Trump had more success elevating his slate of “Make American Great Again” candidates into formidable 2022 contenders than Arizona, a state he narrowly lost in 2020 where he has relentlessly sought to overturn the presidential election results.

With less than a month until Election Day, Trump campaigned in Mesa on Sunday with those hand-selected GOP candidates vying for the top offices in the state: Gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, US Senate nominee Blake Masters and Secretary of State nominee Mark Finchem.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Kanye West’s Twitter account locked after offensive tweet aimed at Jewish community

Twitter

Kanye West is facing controversy again, after Twitter locked his account over a tweet he wrote aimed at the Jewish community that violated the company’s policies.

The rapper, who changed his name to Ye, posted a highly offensive tweet referencing the Jewish community on Saturday night, which involved a reference to the defense readiness alert used by the U.S. armed forces.

“The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” the rapper wrote in the now-deleted post.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Blasts rock Kyiv after Putin accuses Ukraine of Crimea bridge attack ‘terrorism’

Kiev Kyiv Ukraine Flag
Kiev Kyiv Ukraine Flag

Multiple explosions rocked Kyiv and cities across Ukraine on Monday, shattering months of relative calm for civilians in the capital and beyond.

At least 8 people were killed and 24 others injured after Russian missile attacks hit the city, Ukrainian officials said.

NBC News has not verified the claims.

Air defenses were activated in what appeared to be a broad attack not seen since the very earliest days of the war, when Moscow’s troops invaded after launching a barrage of fire on civilian targets.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: Herschel Walker Proves That All That GOP Abortion Sh** Was a Lie

I’ve never seen a grift given away quite as blatantly as it was by right-wing talk thing Dana Loesch (motto: “I was too fucking crazy for the NRA”). In talking about the revelation that ultra-anti-abortion Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, running against incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock, paid for a girlfriend’s abortion, Loesch started with “What I’m about to say is in no means a contradiction or a compromise of a principle,” which automatically means “I’m throwing my principles out the window faster than a priest at Disney World.” Then she just fucking said it, the thing we all knew was true but that none of them had the guts to just let everyone know: “I am concerned about one thing, and one thing only at this point. So, I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

StephCast F 10-7-22

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Judy Tenuta, Accordion-Playing ‘Love Goddess’ of Standup Comedy, Dies at 72

Judy Tenuta
Judy Tenuta

Judy Tenuta, a standup comic who shot to fame during the 1980s, delivering her frenetic, off-kilter comedy while dressed in outlandish outfits, playing the accordion and anointing herself “The Love Goddess,” died on Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 72.

Her longtime manager, Roger Paul, said the cause was ovarian cancer.

Ms. Tenuta broke through at a time when the comedy industry was almost exclusively male and was the first woman standup comic to win “Best Female Comedian” at the American Comedy Awards in 1988, according to a biography on her official website. She was also nominated for two Emmys for her comedy albums, “Attention Butt-Pirates & Lesbetarians!” and “In Goddess We Trust.”

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Justice Dept. Is Said to Believe Trump Has More Documents

Trump Classified Documents
Trump Classified Documents

A top Justice Department official told former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers in recent weeks that the department believed he had not returned all the documents he took when he left the White House, according to two people briefed on the matter.

The outreach from the official, Jay I. Bratt, who leads the department’s counterintelligence operations, is the most concrete indication yet that investigators remain skeptical that Mr. Trump has been fully cooperative in their efforts to recover documents the former president was supposed to have turned over to the National Archives at the end of his term.

It is not clear what steps the Justice Department might take to retrieve any material it thinks Mr. Trump still holds.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Biden warns risk of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is highest since Cuban Missile Crisis

Biden Speaking
Biden Speaking

President Joe Biden said Thursday the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is the highest it has been for 60 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed his threats.

In remarks at a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said it was the first time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that there has been a “direct threat” of nuclear weapons’ being used, “if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Biden to pardon thousands convicted of marijuana possession

marijuana pot cannabis
marijuana pot cannabis

President Joe Biden announced Thursday he will take executive action to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law.

Biden said he would also encourage governors to take similar action with state offenses and ask the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department to review how marijuana is scheduled, or classified, under federal law.

The president’s action, a significant shift in the federal government’s approach to marijuana policy, is a step toward making good on his campaign commitment to decriminalize marijuana.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

StephCast Th 10-6-22

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In Rebuke to West, OPEC and Russia Aim to Raise Oil Prices With Big Supply Cut

oil well refinery
oil well refinery

Saudi Arabia and Russia, acting as leaders of the OPEC Plus energy cartel, agreed on Wednesday to their first large production cut in more than two years in a bid to raise prices, countering efforts by the United States and Europe to choke off the enormous revenue that Moscow reaps from the sale of crude.

President Biden and European leaders have urged more oil production to ease gasoline prices and punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine. Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, has been accused of using energy as a weapon against countries opposing its invasion of Ukraine, and the optics of the decision could not be missed.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Appeals court agrees to speed up Justice Department’s appeal of order appointing outside arbiter in Trump documents dispute

Trump Classified Documents
Trump Classified Documents

A federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed to speed up consideration of the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court order appointing an outside legal expert to review the documents seized by the FBI at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit granted the request from federal prosecutors to shorten the timeline for the Justice Department and Trump’s lawyers to file briefs in the dispute. The former president opposed the request, arguing in a filing to the 11th Circuit on Monday that he would be prejudiced if the appeal were expedited.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Woman Who Claims Herschel Walker Paid for Her Abortion Says They Also Share a Child

Herschel Walker
Herschel Walker

Walker’s campaign has been in damage control mode for 48 hours – since it was reported by the Daily Beast that he paid $700 to have a pregnancy he considered inconvenient terminated. The candidate has denied the story as a lie and has claimed he does not know who the woman is.

Her identity has been protected, but she told the Beast his adamant denials drove her to divulge the bombshell.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Biden meets with DeSantis in Florida as he surveys Hurricane Ian damage

President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared side-by-side in hard-hit Fort Myerson Wednesday as the president surveyed damage from Hurricane Ian.

The two leaders, often political opponents, have momentarily put politics aside to respond to the historic storm, which is shaping up to be one of Florida’s deadliest and costliest in decades. Making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Ian leveled the coast, knocking out power to millions. At least 100 people died.

DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, greeted Biden and first lady Jill Biden upon their arrival at Fisherman’s Wharf for an operational briefing. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and other local officials were also at the site.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

StephCast W 10-5-22

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New Poll Shows Lauren Boebert Effectively Tied With Challenger, Suddenly at Risk of Losing Seat

graph poll
graph poll

Controversial Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leads her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch by only two points, according to a new poll out this week.

The Keating Research poll, conducted from Sept. 2 to October 2, found Boebert leading with 47 percent of the vote to Frisch’s 45 percent, with 7 percent undecided. The poll carried a margin of error of 4.4 percent, making the result a statistical tie.

The last poll from Keating, a left-leaning firm, found Boebert leading 49-42 percent. The new poll shows a 5-point swing in the direction of the Democrat.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

“The final defense is us and our rifles”: Oath Keepers leaders talked of taking up arms days after Biden’s victory

gun guns ammo weapon bullets
gun guns ammo weapon bullets

In the days after media outlets calculated that Joe Biden had won the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors allege members of the far-right Oath Keepers group, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were making calculations of their own: how best to mount a resistance to Joe Biden’s presidency and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

FBI Special Agent Michael Palian — assigned to investigate the group’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack – told a Washington, D.C., jury on Tuesday that records and text messages from Nov. 9, 2020, show that Rhodes and other Oath Keepers convened a call to discuss where their fight would go next. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Trump Lashes Out at ‘Fake News Media’ Over Herschel Walker’s Abortion Bombshell: ‘Trying to Destroy a Man’ With ‘True Greatness in His Future’

Donald Trump
Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump attacked the media while defending Herschel Walker over the newly-reported abortion bombshell for the Republican Senate candidate he endorsed.

“Herschel Walker is being slandered and maligned by the Fake News Media and obviously, the Democrats,” Trump declared in a statement on Tuesday. “Interestingly, I’ve heard many horrible things about his opponent, Raphael Warnock, things that nobody should be talking about, so we don’t. Herschel has properly denied the charges against him, and I have no doubt he is correct.”

Trump declined to elaborate on these so-called “horrible things” people ought to know about Walker’s opponent, the Democratic incumbent senator. The ex-president also refused to address any of the evidence The Daily Beast cited in their report that Walker — an anti-abortion absolutist — impregnated his girlfriend in 2009 and then paid for her to have the procedure. The Beast broke the story after speaking with the woman, who produced a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a bank deposit receipt with a check from Walker, and a “get well” card that — according to Walker’s own son — has his dad’s handwriting on it.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Mar-a-Lago Case, Rips Raid as Political and Says: ‘I Want My Documents Back’

Supreme Court SCOTUS
Supreme Court SCOTUS

Former President Donald Trump has asked the United States Supreme Court to intervene on his behalf in his classified documents fight against the Justice Department.

In a filing Tuesday afternoon, attorneys for Trump said they are seeking to overturn a ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that ordered his hand-picked special master to halt a review of documents from his home on Aug. 8.

In a request addressed to Justice Clarence Thomas, who is assigned to the 11th Circuit, Trump’s legal team portrayed the DOJ’s case against Trump as political

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

StephCast T 10-4-22

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Oath Keepers leader regretted not having guns on Jan. 6, prosecutors say at seditious conspiracy trial

gavel courtroom trial
gavel courtroom trial

The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers was recorded days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol saying his “only regret” about that day is that the group “should have brought rifles,” federal prosecutors revealed in federal court Monday.

Opening statements began Monday in the seditious conspiracy trialof Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes alongside Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell. Other members of the alleged conspiracy will go on trial in November.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Herschel Walker’s son lashes out at dad after news report the Senate GOP nominee paid for an abortion in 2009

Twitter

Herschel Walker’s son Christian Walker blasted his dad’s bid for a Georgia Senate seat by calling him a bad father, a liar and a hypocrite just hours after a news report Monday said the GOP nominee got a woman pregnant and paid for her abortion more than a decade ago.

“I don’t care about someone who has a bad past and takes accountability. But how DARE YOU LIE and act as though you’re some ‘moral, Christian, upright man.’ You’ve lived a life of DESTROYING other peoples lives. How dare you,” Christian Walker wrote in a series of tweets.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Trump defamation suit accuses CNN of escalating slander against him over ‘fears’ he will run in 2024

CNN
CNN

Former President Donald Trump sued CNN alleging defamation on Monday, accusing the news network of taking persistent actions aimed at “defeating him politically.”

According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida, Trump alleged CNN has maliciously made false and defamatory statements about him. He is seeking $475 million in punitive damages, as well as compensatory damages to be determined at trial.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

National Archives notified Trump lawyers in May 2021 it was missing Kim Jong Un correspondence and Obama letter

Write writing letter pen paper
Write writing letter pen paper

The National Archives notified Donald Trump’s lawyers in May 2021 that some of the presidential records it was missing included correspondence between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and a letter former President Barack Obama left for Trump, according to a previously undisclosed email.

The National Archives and Record Administration made the email, dated May 6, 2021, and several other documents public Monday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by numerous news organizations. The bulk of requested material was not released.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Charlie Pierce: They’ve Figured Out who Ronald DeSantis’ Pied Piper of the Vineyard Is

Charlie Pierce Esquire
Charlie Pierce Esquire
When details started to emerge from Martha’s Vineyard about the mechanics of Florida Gov. Ronald DeSantis’ dirty trick, one of the principal villains was the mysterious “Perla,” who (one assumes) has some interesting tales to tell about how she landed the gig, including who hired her and what her instructions were. If only we knew who she was!

Imagine that: CNN figured it out. She’s Perla Huerta.

Read the rest of Charlie Pierce’s piece at Esquire Politics

StephCast M 10-3-22

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“They cheat like hell, these people”: Trump airs 2020 grievances in Michigan, weeks before midterm elections

For the first seven minutes of his Michigan rally Saturday, former President Donald Trump stuck to two familiar issues Republicans are running on this November: inflation and the rising cost of living under President Biden, and immigration and the southern border. 

Then, he turned to a topic that’s been occupying him since November 2020: that the presidential election had been “stolen” from him. 

He claimed John James, now a congressional candidate for Michigan’s 10th District, had won his last race for U.S. Senate in 2020. He did not. James lost to Sen. Gary Peters by over 92,000 votes. Trump accused Democrats of obliterating “election integrity.” He said America is a “third world country” because of how ballots are counted, and he praised France for using paper ballots.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Sen. Rick Scott says there are ‘arguments to do’ abortion restrictions ‘at the federal level’

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., the chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign fundraising arm, said Sunday that he supports “reasonable” abortion restrictions and that “there’s arguments to do it at the federal level.”

Scott was asked on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” to weigh in on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill to ban abortion nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy and whether he believes such restrictions should be done on the federal level.

“Look, there’s arguments to do it at the federal level,” he said. “Right now, all the candidates are taking positions.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Historic search-and-rescue operation underway as Ian’s death toll reaches 87

As federal emergency management officials launched their largest ever search-and-rescue effort, the number of fatalities in Hurricane Ian’s wake climbed to 87 Sunday.

That number, tallied by NBC News, was expected to continue to climb as additional deaths were investigated for possible ties to last week’s storm.

The fatalities so far have included 83 in Florida, where Ian struck as a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday, and four in North Carolina, where the storm ended up after striking the coast of South Carolina Friday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

National Archives says some records from Trump White House are still missing

Documents Papers Stack
Documents Papers Stack

The National Archives and Records Administration has informed the House Oversight and Reform Committee that some records from the Trump White House have not been turned over in compliance with the Presidential Records Act.

In a letter Friday to the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., acting Archivist Debra Steidel Wall said the National Archives is still trying to retrieve records from Trump administration officials who “conducted official business using non-official electronic messaging accounts.”

“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” Wall wrote.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Rude Pundit: On Mental Health, Like on Everything Else, Republicans Are Always Liars

In June, during the debate over two Democratic-sponsored bills with mild new rules for purchase and ownership of firearms in the wake of the horrific school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans predictably lost their collective shit over “muh 2nd ‘Mendment.” Putting aside the fact that without the guns, people in all kinds of mental states would not be able to shoot other people, what was fascinating in that GOP shit-losing was how many times Republicans said that they wanted to pass bills that addressed mental health issues, not guns. It’s as if they found a magical talking point and they waved it like a wand made of liberal tears.

For instance:

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas claimed that Republicans had a bill that provided funding for “mental health counselors” for schools.

Read the rest of The Rude Pundit’s piece at his blog…

SMHH Videocast 9-30-22 Elie Mystal & Frangela

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StephCast 9-30-22

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Ginni Thomas Denies Discussing Election Subversion Efforts With Her Husband

WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election, told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she never discussed those efforts with her husband, during a closed-door interview in which she continued to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.

Leaving the interview, which took place at an office building near the Capitol and lasted about four hours, Ms. Thomas smiled in response to reporters’ questions, but declined to answer any publicly.

Stephcast 9-29-22

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StephCast 9-28-22

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Jan. 6 committee postpones planned hearing as Hurricane Ian advances

capitol Washington DC
capitol Washington DC

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is postponing its highly anticipated hearing because of Hurricane Ian, which is expected to barrel into the western coast of Florida on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the decision.

It’s unclear when the daytime hearing, which seeks to recapture the nation’s attention with what is likely to be the panel’s final public hearing before the release of a final report, will be rescheduled.

StephCast 9-27-22

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How a QAnon splinter group became a feature of Trump rallies

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Julie McDaniel can’t say for sure who started it. It might even have been her.

McDaniel was in the front section at a Trump rally earlier this month in Youngstown, Ohio, when the former president started wrapping up his speech by playing an instrumental score embraced by followers of the QAnon online conspiracy theory. She felt moved to raise her right hand and point to the sky — to God, she said. Soon everyone around her was doing it, too.

“It was spontaneous, it was it was like the domino effect,” said McDaniel, who also attended Friday’s rally here in Wilmington, N.C., coming from her home in the Chicago area. She objected to news coverage that condemned the gesture, with some comparing it to a Nazi salute. “It was an amazing, amazing moment, when you have the unity that everybody is there, and not only in this small group that was on the floor, but other people were doing it,” she said.

Jan. 6 committee hearing will use clips from Roger Stone documentary

The Danish filmmakers, who previously were hesitant to cooperate with the investigation, said this week they decided to comply with a subpoena issued by the committee

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob intends to show at its hearing this week video footage of Roger Stone recorded by Danish filmmakers during the weeks before the violence, according to people familiar with the matter.

The committee is considering including video clips in which Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of Donald Trump, predicted violent clashes with left-wing activists and forecast months before the 2020 vote that the then-president would use armed guards and loyal judges to stay in power, according to one of the people familiar with hearing planning.

Kevin McCarthy Tripped Over His Clown Shoes Rolling Out His Pitch to Be Speaker

We had a little sport with Kevin McCarthy’s “Commitment To America” plan of inaction earlier this week. I believe the concept of rake-stepping was discussed at some length. Well, the agenda had its rollout on Friday, complete with an explanatory video. And, well…WHAP!

From HuffPost:

The GOP’s video, “The Preamble to the Commitment to America,” opens with a narrator highlighting aspects of what it means to be an American. “We celebrate the rich heritage of the American story and the vibrancy of the American Dream,” the voice says, over footage of a drilling rig at sunrise. But this video snippet, an apparent nod to America’s natural resources, wasn’t filmed in America. It’s stock footage created by Serg Grbanoff, a filmmaker based in Russia.

Classic.

The Gnawing Anxiety That Trump Will Get Away With All of It

The Rude Pundit
The Rude Pundit

I can’t get past something when it comes to the multiple crimes of Donald Trump, who really was president (something I still can’t fucking believe happened – I mean, I know it happened. I’m not denying the existence of facts, like Trump and his braindead legions do. I’m just always gonna be like “Fuck us that we let that happen”). And it’s really simple, one of those elegant confluences of circumstance that should have complete clarity. It’s this:

The law is intensely clear: With a few exceptions that need to be approved, the records of a presidential administration belong to the nation, not the president. All of it, classified, unclassified, and declassified, go to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, an office set up to take care of those records that are, again, by law, the nation’s. There’s no wiggle room on this. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals made it crystal-fuckin’-clear in its decision this week in favor of the Justice Department when it comes to the hundred or so documents found by the FBI at Trump’s shitty fake castle, Mar-a-lago. “They are ‘owned by, produced by or for, or . . . under the control of the United States Government,'” it wrote. 

StephCast 9-26-22

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Career prosecutors recommend no charges for Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

Matt Gaetz
Matt Gaetz

Investigators see credibility challenges for two of the main witnesses in the probe of the congressman’s past dealings with a 17-year-old

Exclusive: Trump’s secret court fight to stop grand jury from getting information from his inner circle

Trump Dumb
Trump Dumb

Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys are fighting a secret court battle to block a federal grand jury from gathering information from an expanding circle of close Trump aides about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people briefed on the matter told CNN.

The high-stakes legal dispute – which included the appearance of three attorneys representing Trump at the Washington, DC, federal courthouse on Thursday afternoon – is the most aggressive step taken by the former President to assert executive and attorney-client privileges in order to prevent some witnesses from sharing information in the criminal investigation events surrounding January 6, 2021.

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