Lightyear

In a new memo obtained first by NBC News, White House spokesperson Ian Sams said MAGA Republicans in the House led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer are “admitting” that congressional investigations into the Biden family’s finances are an attempt to damage the president politically. "[E]xtreme MAGA House Republicans are being caught doing something they rarely do: telling the truth,” he said. “They are admitting through their own words and deeds that these so-called ‘investigations’ are actually intended not to reveal facts but to hurt the President’s political standing.” Comer’s comments linking the probes to Biden’s poll numbers in a Fox News interview made this explicit, Sams continued. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-memo-says-gop-telling-truth-investigation-motives-rcna86078

WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Thursday introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden over his handling of migrant crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border. Greene accused Biden of abusing his power by "endangering the security of the United States and thwarting the will of Congress," according to the articles. "Joe Biden has deliberately compromised our national security by refusing to enforce immigration laws and secure our border, allowed approximately 6 million illegals from over 160 countries to invade our country, deprived border patrol of the necessary resources and policies sufficient to protect our country, and his administration has willfully refused to maintain operational control as required by law," Greene said in a statement. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/marjorie-taylor-greene-introduces-biden-impeachment-articles-rcna85098

The scandal surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas has further eroded the already record-low public confidence in the Supreme Court. If Chief Justice John Roberts wonders how such a thing could have happened, he might start looking for answers within the cloistered walls of his own courtroom. Over more than two decades, the Supreme Court has gutted laws aimed at fighting corruption and at limiting the ability of the powerful to enrich public officials in a position to advance their interests. As a result, today wealthy individuals and corporations may buy political access and influence with little fear of legal consequences, either for them or for the beneficiaries of their largess. READ MORE https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/opinion/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-corruption.html No Paywall Archive Link

Former President Donald Trump is appealing a jury’s verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, two days after the nine-person jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the dressing room of a department store in the 1990s. She sued Trump for battery and defamation. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/11/trump-appeals-verdict-liable-for-sexual-assault-00096568

A Texas man who killed a protester almost three years ago was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison, although the state’s Republican governor has promised to approve a pardon if given the opportunity. Daniel Perry, 35, an Army sergeant, was convicted last month by a Travis County jury of murder in the fatal shooting of Garrett Foster in downtown Austin in July 2020. On April 8, the day after the jury returned its verdict, Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that he wanted to pardon Perry, and said he asked the Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider the matter. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/army-sergeant-texas-gov-abbott-wanted-pardon-sentenced-25-years-rcna79474

WASHINGTON — A coalition of abortion and civil rights groups are launching an effort Monday to put constitutional protections for abortion on Florida's ballot in next year's election. The ballot initiative seeks a state constitutional amendment to bar restrictions on abortion before fetal viability, considered to be at about the 24th week of pregnancy, undoing the state’s current 15-week ban and recently passed six-week ban, according to Planned Parenthood, which provided NBC News with a preview of the effort. "No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider," the ballot summary will say. READ MORE https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/abortion-civil-rights-groups-aim-put-abortion-floridas-2024-ballot-rcna83081

Jack Dorsey has openly criticised the leadership of Twitter’s current chief Elon Musk in a new unfiltered response. Commenting on Friday under a discussion on his new social media platform BlueSky, the Twitter co-founder said “it all went south” after the Tesla chief’s purchase of the platform. He said Mr Musk should have “walked away” from the acquisition. READ MORE https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/twitter-musk-dorsey-went-south-b2330037.html

Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference the deal included Fox "admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company". Justin Nelson, a Dominion attorney, told reporters that "the truth matters". "Lies have consequences," he added. "Over two years ago a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories, causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country." READ MORE https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65318654

Florida Republicans are pushing forward a bill that seeks to ban drag shows from allowing someone under the age of 18 to be in attendance. But the bill is so vaguely worded, using the term “adult live performance,” that even Republican lawmakers have admitted it would prevent a high school kid from watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show or even the musical Hair. The bill also explicitly targets Pride parades and celebrations, by preventing a government entity from issuing permits to an organization that may put on such a performance. https://newrepublic.com/post/171638/floridas-anti-drag-bill-extreme-ban-rocky-horror-picture-show-hair-musical

For many, it may sound like a good idea: reducing everyday journeys to a quarter of an hour on foot, by bike or by public transport, with the goal of helping citizens to better meet basic needs. This is what the 15-minute city concept sets out to achieve. "We need to make cities for walking, for having more medical services, educational activities, for the needs of our daily tasks, to make cities livable," says Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris's Sorbonne University who has been credited with developing the concept. READ MORE https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-are-15-minute-cities-creating-new-lockdowns-and-movement-restrictions/a-65226117

Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives has voted to expel Rep. Justin Pearson, a week after he and two other Democrats led a gun reform protest on the House floor. The House earlier expelled Rep. Justin Jones over that protest, which followed a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville school. A vote to expel the third Democrat involved, Rep. Gloria Johnson, failed. The vote over rules violations for Pearson was 69-26. Johnson’s vote was 65-30. Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds majority of the total membership. The vote for Jones split along party lines, 72-25. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/06/us/tennessee-democrats-office-removal-vote/index.html

IN LATE JUNE 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia, he and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef. If Thomas had chartered the plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could have exceeded $500,000, fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary, he was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too. For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show, these trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures, his failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. READ MORE https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow

Donald Trump on Friday threatened “death and destruction” if he’s criminally charged in New York — writing the shocking social media warning after posting an image of himself holding a baseball bat next to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head. “They are HUMAN SCUM!” the 76-year-old former president raged in one post asking why Bragg “refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’” Trump is seeking a rematch against President Biden in 2024 and previously used heated language ahead of actual violence — most notoriously on Jan. 6, 2021, when he told thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” to prevent certification of Biden’s Electoral College win, which they proceeded to do by smashing into the building and battling with police. https://nypost.com/2023/03/24/trump-shares-pic-holding-baseball-bat-near-das-head/

March 23 (UPI) -- A one-time supporter of former President Donald Trump who has found himself at the center of a conspiracy theory claiming he was a government informant who instigated the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has demanded a retraction from Fox commentator Tucker Carlson for defamation. Ray Epps sent a cease and desist letter to Carlson on Thursday, decrying the commentator's repeated "fanciful notions" and his "assault on truth" on his show. "Mr. Carlson and Fox News have repeatedly peddled claims about Mr. Epps that lack any foundation in fact. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2023/03/23/trump-supporter-demands-retraction-tucker-carlson-jan-6-conspiracy-theory/3021679627831/

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) sat for over six hours for a recent New York Times profile and offered extensive insight into how he plans to conduct investigations. Comer, who is a regular guest on Fox News and other right-of-center media outlets, has made headlines in recent weeks claiming that his committee’s probe is getting closer and closer to proving “influence peddling” between Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, and foreign governments – although Comer has yet to show concrete evidence. During an interview, however, the reporters asked Comer if he was willing to apply the same kind of scrutiny he gives Hunter Biden to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. https://www.mediaite.com/politics/james-comer-concedes-itd-be-politically-unsustainable-for-him-to-investigate-jared-kushners-business-dealings/

The debate over masks’ effectiveness in fighting the spread of the coronavirus intensified recently when a respected scientific nonprofit said its review of studies assessing measures to impede the spread of viral illnesses found it was “uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.” Now the organization, Cochrane, says that the way it summarized the review was unclear and imprecise, and that the way some people interpreted it was wrong. “Many commentators have claimed that a recently updated Cochrane review shows that ‘masks don’t work,’ which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor in chief of the Cochrane Library, said in a statement. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/masks-work-cochrane-study.html

A new study in BMJ suggests that a substantial proportion of monkeypox cases—53%— in the ongoing global outbreak are transmitted 1 to 4 days before symptoms appear. Since this spring, 70,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in hundreds of countries around the world, most with no history of the disease. Sexual activity between men who have sex with men (MSM) has driven the outbreak, and the study authors say these new findings have important implications for infection control. The study is based on the contact tracing and surveillance findings of 2,746 UK residents who tested positive for monkeypox virus between May 6 and Aug 1, 2022. Ninety-five percent were MSM, and the average age was 37.8 years old. (more) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2022/11/study-suggests-substantial-symptom-spread-monkeypox Source study: https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj-2022-073153

WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during its Aug. 8 search at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate, as well as 48 empty folders labeled as "classified," according to court records that were unsealed on Friday. The unsealing by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in West Palm Beach came one day after she heard oral arguments by Trump's attorneys and the Justice Department's top two counterintelligence prosecutors over whether she should appoint a special master to conduct a privilege review of the seized materials at Trump's request. Cannon deferred ruling immediately on whether to appoint a special master but said she would agree to unseal two records filed by the Justice Department. (more) https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-court-unseals-more-documents-stemming-fbi-search-trumps-home-2022-09-02/

The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973. The court’s controversial but expected ruling gives individual states the power to set their own abortion laws without concern of running afoul of Roe, which had permitted abortions during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. Almost half the states are expected to outlaw or severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, which is related to a highly restrictive new Mississippi abortion law. Other states plan to maintain more liberal rules governing the termination of pregnancies. (more) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-by-supreme-court-ending-federal-abortion-rights.html

Kyle Rittenhouse on Monday posted a video of himself firing off what appeared to be an automatic firearm while declaring to President Joe Biden that he couldn't take away Americans' guns. Rittenhouse posted the video to Twitter along with the caption, "Come and take 'em, Joe." The video appeared to show Rittenhouse firing off a slew of bullets from an automatic weapon while at a shooting range. After stepping back from the gun and being patted on the back, Rittenhouse gives a thumbs up and declares: "Joe Biden, you're not coming for our guns." Rittenhouse fatally shot two men and injured a third amid protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. He was acquitted in November of five charges, including first-degree homicide. (more) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kyle-rittenhouse-posts-video-of-himself-firing-off-a-slew-of-bullets-from-an-automatic-firearm-declaring-joe-biden-you-re-not-coming-for-our-guns/ar-AAYaeZo

A federal grand jury has indicted Peter Navarro, a former Trump White House adviser, on criminal contempt of Congress charges over his refusal to cooperate in the House investigation of the January 6th attack. The indictment comes after the House voted in April to refer Navarro to the Justice Department for failing to comply with a February subpoena from the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol riot. Navarro was charged with one contempt count for his refusal to appear for a deposition, and another for his refusal to produce documents requested by the committee, despite the subpoena from the January 6 committee, the Justice Department said Friday. (more) https://www.nationalreview.com/news/former-trump-aide-navarro-indicted-for-contempt-of-congress-over-refusal-to-cooperate-with-january-6-investigation/