Politics

Last month, Lauren Boebert gave mass shooting survivors the cold shoulder. Now she’s decided to level up.

The White House on Wednesday expanded its war on junk fees to the rental housing market, announced a crackdown on price-fixing in food and agricultural markets, and unveiled draft merger guidelines as part of an ongoing push to aid U.S. consumers.

The judge found that Trump had improperly invoked a law allowing officers of the United States to move civil or criminal cases brought against them in a state court to federal court.

The state once allowed trans students use bathrooms, pronouns, and play on sports teams matching their gender identities. Not anymore...

“It is critical that Alabama be fairly and accurately represented in Washington,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said as she called the legislature back for a special session. “Our legislature knows our state better than the federal courts do.”

So they can ignore the Supreme Court whenever they want to, but everyone else has to accept their rights being taken away 🤦

Characterized by vast expanses of dunes and sparsely vegetated plains, Western Sahara is a predominantly desert and arid territory. The United Nations categorizes

it as a non-self-governing territory, essentially a remnant of a former colony.

But underneath its soil lies abundant reserves of phosphate — a vital component in fertilizer production, which became a strategically important commodity following the war in Ukraine. The territory also has rich fishing waters along its coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.

Morocco considers Western Sahara an integral part of its territory and has maintained de facto control over most of the region for decades. However, most countries — and the United Nations — have refused to endorse Morocco's claim.

Along with the UN General Assembly, several international courts including the International Court of Justice
have ruled that colonialization in Western Sahara is still pending and Morocco's efforts to annex it are illegal.

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A pro-Ron DeSantis super PAC uses an Artificial Intelligence version of Donald Trump’s voice in a new television ad attacking the former president.

The ad, from Never Back Down, charges Trump with attacking Iowa governor Kim Reynolds as part of a larger pattern of disrespect he has shown to the first caucus state.

But the audio that the spot uses is not actually from Trump. A person familiar with the ad confirmed Trump’s voice was AI generated. Its content appears to be based off of a post that Trump made on his social media site Truth Social last week. The person said it will run statewide in Iowa tomorrow and that the ad buy was at least $1 million — a massive sum though one doable for the well-heeled super PAC. It will also be running via text message and on digital platforms.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) leaned in on some of the more salacious issues concerning Hunter Biden in her questioning of IRS whistleblowers who investigated Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday — and brought sexually explicit posters to make her point.

The former president wanted to relocate the criminal case to a federal court for strategic reasons.

After The Daily Beast revealed that Kyrsten Sinema was paying big money to Tulsi Gabbard's sister, it turns out that Sinema has continued footing those bills.

New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley are introducing bipartisan legislation that would prevent members of the executive and legislative branches — as well as their spouses and children — from trading individual company stocks.

Michigan has become the first state to charge GOP figures with an alleged plot to install fake election officials to wrongly declare Trump had won in 2020.

What the jury found Donald Trump did to E. Jean Carroll was in fact rape, as commonly understood, even if it didn't fit New York law's narrow definition, says Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.

After Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, his legal team and his defenders lodged a frequent talking point.
Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse.
“This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that — made other findings,” his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said outside the courthouse.
A judge has now clarified that this is basically a legal distinction without a real-world difference. He says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.
The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.
Kaplan roundly rejected Trump’s motion Tuesday, calling that argument “entirely unpersuasive.”
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.
He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”
The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”
Kaplan also flatly rejected the Trump team’s suggestion that the conduct Trump was found liable for might have been as limited as groping of the breasts.
The reason? Trump was not accused of that, so the only alleged offense that would have qualified as “sexual abuse” was forced digital penetration. Beyond that, Trump was accused of putting his mouth on Carroll’s mouth and pulling down her tights, which Kaplan noted were not treated as alleged sexual abuse at trial.
“The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina,” Kaplan wrote, calling it the “only remaining conclusion.”
Kaplan also noted that the verdict form did not ask the jury to decide exactly what conduct Trump had committed, and that neither prosecutors nor Trump’s lawyers had requested it to do so.
“Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the sexual abuse finding as perhaps resting on nothing more than groping of Ms. Carroll’s breasts through her clothing is frivolous,” Kaplan wrote.
He added that the jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”
The motion was a part of Trump’s efforts to appeal the verdict against him. That’s an effort that will apparently continue as he faces a separate defamation lawsuit from Carroll, dealing with claims Trump made about her allegations while he was still president.
But for now, Trump’s effort to push back has led to a rather remarkable clarification that severely undercuts his main talking point.

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is accused of pushing a similar plot in Arizona to falsely declare Donald Trump won the state in 2020.

Judge Aileen Cannon said she would issue a ruling later after appearing skeptical of arguments from both sides

The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case signaled that she could delay the trial until 2024, appearing inclined to find that the matter was sufficiently complex after hearing arguments from prosecutors and the former president’s lawyers on Tuesday.
Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, on 13 June.
Trump says he received target letter in federal January 6 investigation
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The US district court judge Aileen Cannon did not rule from the bench on a timetable during the roughly two-hour pre-trial conference at the courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, and concluded the hearing by saying she would enter a written order at a later date.

Prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the documents case and the investigation into Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power, had asked Cannon last week to reject Trump’s suggestion to postpone the trial until after the 2024 election.

The dueling requests from Trump and the justice department present an early test for Cannon, a Trump appointee who is under heightened scrutiny for issuing favorable rulings to the former president during the criminal investigation, before they were overturned on appeal.

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Republican senators say they’re worried that conservative populism, though always a part of the GOP, is beginning to take over the party, becoming more radical and threatening to cause them signifi…

From Dr. Seuss to Big Bird to Barbie, Ted Cruz keeps taking an interest in the politics of pop culture. He also keeps embarrassing himself.

It’s the best way to win another Senate term . . . if he doesn’t run for president.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has lampooned yet another of her perceived opponents with the “little bitch” insult she appears to be growing increasingly fond of – this time lambasting Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The Georgia Republican representative was previously removed from the House after referring to her GOP colleague Lauren Boebert as a “little b***h” – but this time aimed her verbal abuse at the special counsel responsible for investigating former president Donald Trump’s alleged retention of classified documents and role in the January 6 insurrection.
Mr Trump was indicted on 37 counts in federal court, including 31 counts of “willful retention” of classified documents some of which pertain to matters of national security. He is also indicted on six counts relating to alleged attempts to impede the investigation.
The former president has vehemently denied the charges against him.
He is being prosecuted by Mr Smith who, according to Reuters, has a solid reputation for pursuing tough cases including those against mobsters and war criminals.
Indeed, Mr Smith supervised war crime prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and was also the head of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section until 2015.
However, these qualifications failed to impress Ms Greene, who suggested that Mr Smith was a “lousy attorney” who had not enjoyed a successful career.
“Jack Smith is a lousy attorney,” she tweeted. “His career is filled with mistrials, overturned cases, and judicial rebukes. He only targets Republicans because he’s a weak little bitch for the Democrats.”
Twitter users were quick to mock Ms Greene for her outburst.
“If you had ‘marjorie taylor greene makes ‘little bitch’ her thing’ on your bingo card, please come collect your prize,” Ursula Perano of The Daily Beast tweeted.

The No Labels Party is now the fourth officially recognized political party in Arizona, after the Democratic, Libertarian and Republican parties, for federal, statewide and legislative races.

It is also a scam.

No Labels doesn’t want to follow the rules other parties must follow. Particularly those about making public where its contributions come from.

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly put it this way last weekend, “I don’t think No Labels is a political party. I mean, this is a few individuals putting dark money behind an organization, and that’s not what our democracy should be about.”

He added, “It should not be about a few rich people. So I’m obviously concerned about what’s going on here in Arizona and across the country.”

The congressman’s announcement comes amid reports that the former presient may be indicted again

Former President Donald Trump received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith in the January 6 investigation but his former attorney, ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, evaded a similar fate after meeting with prosecutors.

Giuliani has not received a target letter, his attorney told CNN's Paula Reid, and he does not expect to be charged after he completed a voluntary interview with special counsel investigators several weeks ago

Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”

The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.

According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.

The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.

The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.

“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, later adding: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”

....

Young Americans are piling the blame for their student debt balances on conservatives, according to a poll by Generation Lab provided exclusively to Axios.

Sixteen people forged documents and claimed to be "duly elected and qualified electors" for the state of Michigan, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.