<CNN's Jake Tapper closed out Sunday's episode of State of the Union by slamming Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent censure resolution against Representative Rashida Tlaib saying, "this s*** is not a game."

Greene, a Georgia Republican, made moves last week to censure Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, over her response to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, has been a vocal critic about Israel's response to Hamas' surprise attack on October 7, which was the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza.

According to Israeli officials, 1,400 people in Israel have been killed as of Sunday, the Associated Press reported, while over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to officials from the health ministry in Gaza, the AP said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is "at war" and has cut off supplies of food, fuel, electricity and medicine into Gaza.

While Tlaib, who said she mourned the loss of lives on both sides, continues to receive criticism, Greene introduced a resolution to the House floor on Thursday to censure the Democratic congresswoman.

However, while speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Tapper criticized Greene's censure resolution as he stated while there are valid criticisms of Tlaib, it "twists a bunch of things she said beyond recognition."

"The resolution seems much more focused on January 6 than October 7. Throughout its pages, Marjorie Taylor Greene describes this act of civil disobedience from a bunch of left wing Jewish groups that are critical of Israel's government as an insurrection," Tapper said.

Tapper was referring to a previous comment that Greene has made about an October 18 demonstration that involved hundreds of Jewish-Americans protesting on Capitol Hill, demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. Tlaib, who attended the protest, was falsely accused by the Republican congresswoman of "leading the current insurrection." A Capitol police spokesperson previously told Newsweek that the event was "generally a peaceful demonstration."

"Antisemitism is not a cudgel to be used against people for political points, nor is Islamophobia or racism or anti-gay behavior or misogyny or any other kind of bigotry," he said in his closing remarks. "Just over three weeks ago, 1,400 people, mostly Jews, mostly civilians, were slaughtered here in some of the cruelest and most unimaginable ways in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. This s*** is not a game."

In response to Tapper's comments, some took to X, formerly Twitter, to express their thoughts on the matter.

"Righteous anger from Jake Tapper. It's how a lot of American Jews feel right now. And for good reason," lawyer and writer Daniel Miller wrote.

Another X user, JoJoFromJerz wrote: "I'm not a fan of Jake Tapper, but this is very powerful."

While former GOP Virginia Representative Denver Riggleman, now an independent, simply wrote on X, "Well said and down the line."

This comes after Greene faces potential censure herself after Representative Becca Balint, a freshman Vermont Democrat, introduced a resolution aiming to censure her in the House of Representatives on Thursday.

"This woman, Marjorie Taylor Greene—it seems to be her only purpose is to sic Americans after other Americans, to fend more hatred, to fan more dissension and fear-mongering...We have got to have a bottom here," Balint said.

Meanwhile, Greene continues to remain firm on her stance against Tlaib by writing on X on October 18, "I'm writing a censure resolution for Rashida Tlaib. After what she did today, I expect even Democrats will join in. She is an Israel hating America hating woman who does not represent anything America stands for."

In response to Greene's efforts, Tlaib wrote on X on Thursday, "Marjorie Taylor Greene's unhinged resolution is deeply Islamophobic and attacks peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates. I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence.">

<Several dozen Republican lawmakers wrote to the newly-elected Speaker of the House asking him to repeal an emissions reduction program from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), according to a copy of the letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas wrote the letter, which urges House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to repeal the IRA’s Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP) natural gas tax before the year’s end by including the MERP repeal in a possibly forthcoming legislative package. Pfluger and other prominent Republican signatories, such as Reps. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida and Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, slammed the MERP as an excessive and unwieldy regulation that would stymie innovation and drive up costs for the American energy industry.

“The MERP is an inappropriate and highly unworkable tax on methane emissions,” the letter states. “If implemented, the ill-conceived natural gas tax will handicap technological innovation, reduce supplies of affordable energy, and increase both costs and emissions,” the letter continues, adding that “in order to lower costs for American families, we must repeal burdensome regulation, secure supply chains and unleash American energy.”

The MERP imposes a tax on emissions beyond 25,000 annual tons of carbon dioxide or an equivalent amount of pollution, according to the letter. Companies will be forced to collect the relevant data and pay a fee of $900 for every metric ton above 25,000 starting in 2024, which increases to $1,200 per extra metric ton in 2025 and then $1,500 per extra ton in 2026 and beyond.

The tax is a “statutory codification” of the forced collection of emissions data under a specific sub-section of the Clean Air Act, according to the letter. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to overhaul that particular section of the Clean Air Act such that the agency can increase the scope and costs of the MERP.

New fees or taxes on energy companies will raise costs for consumers, creating a burden that will fall most heavily on lower-income Americans,” the letter states. “In fact, this tax alone will drive up the cost of household energy bills for the 180 million Americans and 5.5 million businesses that rely on natural gas. At a time of persistent inflation and record energy prices, this increase is unthinkable for consumers.”

The EPA and the White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.>

<What happened to House GOP centrists?

They finally had a chance to defeat Trump extremists who turned the U.S. House of Representatives into a dysfunctional clown show for three weeks.

But instead of grabbing control from the radicals, they caved and gave their votes to a low-profile agent of Trump chaos, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).

Johnson is an election denier who refused to vote to certify the 2020 election results. He also signed an amicus brief supporting Texas’s lawsuit to overturn President Biden’s victory in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“Mike Johnson wants to criminalize abortion care. … Mike Johnson wants to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it,” said House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). “Those are extreme views.”

Earlier, in the fight to name a Speaker, a group of 20 or so moderate House Republicans looked ready to defeat the radicals. They blocked Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a Freedom Caucus extremist, from the top job.

Jordan is a high-profile election denier and a central player in former President Donald Trump’s plot to overturn the last presidential election.

Once Jordan was defeated, the far-right actors were busy knifing each other.

That’s when the centrists had the opportunity to get the House GOP caucus back on the path of conservatism that had won the presidency for former Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

They were steps from victory when Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won enough votes to take his nomination to full vote on the House floor. But Trump denounced him as a “Globalist RINO.” Emmer’s sin was having voted to certify the 2020 election results and having been openly critical of the violent attack on the capitol by Trump supporters.

Once Emmer withdrew, the centrists folded, confirming their impotence.

“This has been about who can appease Donald Trump,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) astutely observed of the three weeks of dysfunction in the House caused by far-right, Trump Republicans battling each other to lead the Republican majority.

The heart of the centrist House bloc that chickened out comprises 18 Republicans representing congressional districts where President Biden got more votes than Trump....>

<.....Beyond those swing-district members, there are middle-of-the-road Republicans with pragmatic approaches to fiscal issues and national security as well as centrist conservative views on social issues.

If you look at the membership of three of the House GOP’s leading coalitions — the Problem Solvers, the Governance group and Main Street Republicans — they had enough firepower to keep the Speaker’s chair vacant and force the GOP to accept someone less extreme. They could have even worked with Democrats to that end. Instead, they turned tail and ran.

Now the meager opposition to Trump on Capitol Hill is among Republicans in the Senate. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the leader of the GOP caucus, remains no fan of Trump, but he rarely condemns the Trump-led extremists in the Senate or the House. McConnell limits his opposition to votes on funding the government and support for U.S. defense of Ukraine and Israel.

At this point, the only Republicans daring to speak up about the odious decay caused by Trump are being pushed out of Congress or they have already been thrown out.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) leads the soon-to-depart Republican opposition to Trump.

“I don’t really have a home in my party,” Romney told CBS last week. “I come from a tradition of, you know, Ronald Reagan, and George Herbert Walker Bush, and George W. Bush, and John McCain … anti-Putin … anti-authoritarians … involved in the world because it’s in America’s interest, [Republicans who believe] character counts. … That’s the party I’ve come from. And I don’t recognize that in the great majority of our party today. And that, for me, is very troubling.”

Former House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney leads the already-ousted caucus of traditional conservatives opposed to Trump’s impact on the GOP brand.

“I don’t even know [if] I should call it my own party,” Cheney said last week, essentially echoing Romney in lamenting the state of the party in Trump’s grip. When she was asked about threats made against House Republicans and their families for opposing far-right, Trump-backed candidates for Speaker, Cheney pointed to Trump.

“The domestic threats are absolutely being driven by Donald Trump and … his supporters, who in fact have encouraged and taken steps that have resulted in, as we saw on Jan. 6, political violence,” Cheney said.

Cheney was referring to reports that Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska] and his wife received threats after he refused to back Rep. Jim Jordan, a founder of the extreme, Trump-supporting House Freedom Caucus.

Cheney later described some House Republican Trump loyalists as not only glad to break the government but “frankly, some of whom are white supremacists, some of whom are Anti-Semitic.”

“I think Donald Trump is the single most dangerous threat we face,” Cheney concluded.

I’m a Democrat. I never thought I’d have to celebrate Romney and Cheney for their traditional Republican ideas – respect for election results, trying to govern and opposition to authoritarian governments.

But times change.

Republicans need some centrists with a backbone in Congress.

If the MAGA extremists throw out Johnson for working with Democrats to keep the government open, they’ll need a new speaker.

Speaker Romney? Speaker Cheney? >

<A member of former President Donald Trump's "inner circle" suddenly canceled their testimony in his Colorado ballot disqualification trial on Monday.

The former president is facing a lawsuit challenging his candidacy in the Centennial State over charges of his involvement in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his supporters violently protested the 2020 election results in a failed effort to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the plaintiff in the case, argues that Trump motivated January 6 participants with his election fraud claims, violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This bars any individual from holding federal or state office who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to the Capitol attack, pleading not guilty in federal and Georgia criminal cases involving election interference attempts. The former president has said that the criminal indictments filed against him are politically motivated "witch hunts."

His trial kicked off Monday morning, but two former members of the Trump administration expected to testify did not do so, according to Roger Parloff, senior editor at Lawfare, who monitored the trial.

One has been described as a "member of his inner circle," though their identity remains unknown.

"Two of petitioners' planned witnesses--trump adm officials including one described as "member of his inner circle"--abruptly cancelled at some point either over the weekend or just before," Parloff wrote in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

Trump's attorneys last week filed a motion aimed at blocking this individual's testimony in the trial. The testimony was called upon by CREW, which has argued that the request was "premature" and that the evidence would be "admissible" to the case.

The witness "regularly interacted" with Trump, his West Wing staff and his campaign, petitioners wrote in a court filing urging the individual's testimony. The witness was expected to testify about their "observations of Trump's communication with his supporters."

"As a member of Trump's inner circle, [redacted] witnessed Trump discuss the effect of his violent, extreme rhetoric on his supporters and disregard warnings about the potential for violence by his supporters," the petitioners wrote.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign for comment via email on Monday.

During the first day of the trial, Trump was handed a loss after Judge Sarah Wallace declined to recuse herself over an alleged donation to a pro-Democratic Party organization.

Attorney Eric Olson, who represented the plaintiffs, argued on Monday that Trump "summoned and organized" the January 6 "mob," while Trump attorney Scott Gessler described the lawsuit as "anti-democratic." Trump's legal team has said the former president was exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech by saying the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, a claim that has gone unproven.

Colorado's case is the first of two challenges to Trump's candidacy ahead of the 2024 election. Minnesota's Supreme Court is also set to hear oral arguments in a separate ballot disqualification case.>

<Many Republican lawmakers have suggested that both impeachments of former President Donald Trump were politically motivated and that Democrats searched for a reason – any reason – to bring articles of impeachment. Now, it is increasingly likely that the GOP will impeach President Joe Biden.

While former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-California) had launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden's business dealings – including those involving his troubled son Hunter – it had seemed as if it would remain just that, an inquiry. With McCarthy's downfall, and now Trump-backed Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) holding the speaker's gavel, it is likely just a matter of time.

Johnson, who was among the lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman that has overseen the impeachment inquiry, now has the power to move forward on impeachment. He told Fox News host Sean Hannity last week that there is evidence that impeachable offenses had been committed.

"The reason we shifted to the impeachment inquiry stage on the president himself was because if, in fact, all the evidence leads to where we believe it will, that's very likely impeachable offenses," Johnson said, adding, "That's listed as a cause for impeachment in the constitution; bribery and other crimes and misdemeanors. Bribery's listed there, and it looks and smells a lot like that. We're going to follow the truth wherever it leads. We're going to engage in due process because, again, we're the rule of law party."

Yet, Johnson also suggested he won't rush in.

"I know people are getting anxious and they're getting restless and they just want somebody to be impeached, but we don't do that like the other team. We have to base it on the evidence," Johnson added.

Payback for Trump's Impeachments?

Even before the GOP took narrow control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, there had been talk that if/when they did, Biden would face impeachment.

The fact remains that as the Democrats control the Senate, there is little chance Biden will be removed from office. It is thus just political theater – and arguably the same was true when the Democrats impeached Trump.

That could explain why a Monmouth University poll conducted last month found that three in 10 Republicans didn't believe Biden should be impeached, while a separate poll from NBC News also found that more than half – 56 percent – of registered voters didn't think Congress should hold impeachment hearings. Just 39 percent supported such a move. Moreover, six in 10 independents opposed the impeachment hearings.

Winning a Battle But Losing a War Against Joe Biden?

If a formal impeachment vote is brought against President Joe Biden, it is likely a case where it will result in nothing – again, he won't be removed from office given the Democrat's [sic] hold on Congress. It will be a case of winning a battle but losing a war.

And it could be costly for the GOP.

An impeachment could hurt Republicans who are in battleground districts next year. That would result in the party losing its narrow majority, and with it control of the House.

Getting the House in Order

It may also seem that after more than three weeks without a speaker, the House of Representatives needs to get back in order.

Speaker Johnson has to work on funding the government, as a November 17 shutdown deadline is looming, and that will be followed by several spending bills, defense policy legislation, and notably the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization.

In other words, lawmakers will have to do their actual primary job of passing legislation before they can turn to any impeachment proceedings. Yet, it remains a matter of when – not if – a vote on impeachment reaches the House floor.>

<After weeks of infighting, backstabbing and open hostility toward one another, House Republicans finally elected a Speaker, Trump-supporting Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La).

We don’t know if Speaker Johnson will have any more success corralling his conference than Speaker McCarthy did. As the voting wound down, one Republican member, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), expressed his skepticism this way: “Frankly, it doesn’t matter who the Speaker is, because if we can’t govern as a group, as a conference, it doesn’t matter.”

One thing, however, is certain: the damage to the country. The chaos in the House this fall is just one more log on the fire of Americans’ growing cynicism about government — all of it. A new Associated Press poll out in October finds a majority of adults have “hardly any confidence” in Congress. The mistrust extends to the scandal-ridden Supreme Court and other branches of government, too.

One of the biggest problems is that this lack of confidence is indiscriminate, and it’s easy to see why. Those of us who have the time and, frankly, the privilege of looking closely can see that it’s largely one party that is responsible for the highest-profile messes.

But most people don’t have that privilege. They have to get to the dentist, or the boss wants something by five o’clock, or the kids have a soccer game. All they see is headlines blaring “Chaos in Congress” or “Scandal at the Supreme Court.”

This leads to a loss of faith in the entire idea of government. And when that happens, people become convinced that the government can’t solve their problems. So, they get cynical and act accordingly — they don’t vote, or they vote for “disruptors.”

Like a snake eating its tail, it’s a destructive cycle that only hands more power to bad actors.

Right now, those bad actors in Congress are right-wingers who believe the government doesn’t work and are out to prove it. The Tea Party and its congressional successor the Freedom Caucus want to break government. They share a toxic view that the government does more harm than good, and they are not in Congress to solve people’s problems, but to use a “scorched-earth” strategy to hasten the demise of the federal government.

This is the time to remind ourselves how wrong that attitude is. When responsible adults are in charge, the government can and does do great things to improve people’s lives; history shows us it can.

There are the land-grant universities created under Abraham Lincoln’s administration, which helped democratize higher education and continue today.

There were Franklin Roosevelt’s public works programs that provided life-saving employment and rebuilt the economy during the Great Depression.

There was the Nixon administration’s creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, with its enormous benefits for public health and cases of heart disease and asthma.

And there is the Biden administration’s infrastructure program, which continues to invest billions not just in roads and bridges but broadband internet, green energy facilities and much more.

I know this short list won’t be enough to restore every skeptic’s faith in government. What we need now is action. And in the immediate term, Congress has its assignments. It has to send aid to Israel and Ukraine.

And it has to avoid a government shutdown. A shutdown now would seal the deal for Americans who think government is useless. And while loss of public faith is bad enough, real pain would be felt in harm to the economy and to services people need.

It’s clear that our crisis of confidence in government goes beyond Congress. But House Republicans’ antics have made it worse, and now they have a responsibility to do something about it. We know the government can work when responsible people are leading.

We also know we only get a government as good as the one we vote into office. We are rightfully skeptical that House Republicans can do good, productive work on behalf of all of the American people; if they keep showing us they can’t, we have to vote them out.>

<Former President Donald Trump is now back under the gag order imposed by federal Judge Tanya Chutkan for the 2020 election interference case — and already lashing out at her over it. But he could already be in violation, and prosecutors have the tools to go after him.

That's the view of former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, who broke down the implications on MSNBC's "The Beat" alongside former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal.

"It's going to be attack, after attack with the idea of intimidating, which is straight out of the mob playbook," said Katyal. "It's not the same crime, but it is the same behavior and the same threat to the rule of law that a mob boss poses."

"I think Neal's dead on the money here," said Vance. "And Trump didn't stop when the judge re-imposed the gag order, which I think is the telling point. Neal makes this fine line point here that the best evidence against Trump also comes from Trump. We've seen that, and that's something we've discussed for the last six years, starting with the firing of Jim Comey, right? It's always Trump revealing his own inner motives and talking about what he's done."

"So, here we see that last night," Vance continued. "Judge Chutkan reimposes the gag order to give Trump the opportunity to argue and respond against it. She finds his arguments aren't meritorious, and just minutes after he's reimposed, he's back on Truth Social talking to Bill Barr in similar ways to the way he talked about Mark Meadows."

"Even beyond that, like Neal, I struggled because I don't want to call it a Truth, but that's what they call it on Truth Social, so Trump has this 'Truth' that he posts while the gag order is stayed," added Vance. "He doesn't take it down when the gag order is reimposed, and technically, that means he's in violation of the gag order. It doesn't say, if you say it before the gag order and keep saying it, we'll give you grace. Here, Trump's failure to take it down is something, I think we'll see prosecutors bring to the court's attention pretty quickly."

Legal experts spent most of Sunday debating how long it would take Trump to violate the order.>

<Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that the Voting Rights Act does, in fact, still safeguard against racial gerrymandering. That’s already had a profound impact in the South, as Alabama and Georgia have now been ordered to redraw their congressional maps before the 2024 election.

And then there’s North Carolina.

North Carolina Republicans are probably the nation’s most dedicated gerrymanderers. They haven’t always been the most successful in the long term, but they’ve always been ready to bounce back and try again. And with a new congressional map approved last Wednesday, they may have actually found a map that will stick — and potentially decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives next year. Last year, ahead of the midterms, the state Supreme Court struck down a map that would have benefitted Republicans. The redrawn map resulted in the North Carolina delegation being evenly split between 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans. That division makes sense given that statewide elections tend to be decided by just 2 or 3 points. It’s truly wild then that the new map makes it more likely that the delegation will come out of next year’s elections with an 11-3 split in Republicans’ favor.

But since the previous maps were struck down, the North Carolina state Supreme Court flipped last year to a Republican majority and almost immediately ruled that the court has no jurisdiction when it comes to partisan gerrymandering. The GOP-controlled Legislature wasted no time in cobbling together a new set of maps that blatantly favor Republicans, break apart districts in major cities and leaves only one congressional district as a true battleground — but even that one leans Republican and is currently held by a Democrat. (Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, doesn’t have the power to veto the Legislature’s redistricting efforts.)

“It’s a 50-50 state,” Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-N.C., a first-term congressman whose district was eliminated, told Politico. “Seventy-nine percent of the seats for Republicans in a 50-50 state. It’s just wrong.”

The recent federal court rulings in Alabama and Georgia were based on the idea that there were not enough majority Black districts at the state and congressional level based on the demographics at hand. Alabama has been ordered to draw at least one more majority Black congressional district, while Georgia’s redrawn maps will likely add at least one more Democrat-friendly congressional seat and potentially revamp the state Legislature as well. But that means that North Carolina Democrats will need to prove racial bias in the new map, rather than just a partisan one.

Given Republicans’ track record in the state, that may sound like a relatively easy task. Time after time, voter suppression efforts in North Carolina have been ruled to be obvious attempts to dilute Black votes. State voter ID laws were struck down in 2016 and 2021. A federal appeals court in the former case scoffed at the claim that the goal was preventing voter fraud: “Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.”

But rather than reconsider their actions, North Carolina Republicans made it easier to obscure their motives. A provision in this year’s state budget completely repealed a portion of state law that required draft maps and communication surrounding the redistricting process to be made public, The News & Observer reported. In doing so, Republican lawmakers effectively shielded themselves from whatever lawsuits will be filed to challenge the newly passed maps. Even before that, state lawmakers had shown themselves willing to use, and then destroy, secret draft maps to help guide their decisions in the hopes of avoiding scrutiny.

If North Carolina Republicans pull this off, they’ll be an outlier in a country where gerrymanders are becoming less influential. Researchers found that last year’s midterms were basically a wash when it came to partisan gerrymandering, helping keep the Republican majority in the House to a slim four seats. But four more guaranteed seats for Republicans in North Carolina could help stem any losses they take as more racially balanced maps are put into place elsewhere.

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) revealed on Monday that she was "shocked" after learning several Republicans intended to vote against her resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for participating in a peaceful protest against the war in Gaza.

Greene told Real America's Voice host Charlie Kirk that the protest was "terrifying."

"I want to remind you, this happened on the same day Hezbollah declared a day of immense anger," she opined. "And Rashida Tlaib organized with that group. And they did. They did protest, and they did an insurrection into our Capitol complex, stopping Congress and stopping the Senate."

The lawmaker said she had recently tried to convince her Republican colleagues to censure Tlaib during a conference call.

"I did anticipate every single Republican colleague of mine and even Democrats, because I've talked to several of them that want to vote to censure Rashida Tlaib as well," she explained. "But I want to let you know, I was shocked last night on our GOP conference call when several Republican members of Congress spoke up and said they did not want to vote to censure Rashida Tlaib."

Greene named several Republicans who opposed her resolution, but she singled out Rep. Young Kim (R-CA).

"And she even went so far as to say, Young Kim said that she didn't want to have to vote on political positions," Greene continued. "Yet Young Kim, I'd like to remind everyone, voted to kick me off of committees. But somehow she feels uncomfortable voting to censure Democrat, anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Rashida Tlaib."

"So it seems like Republican Young Kim would rather stand with Rashida Tlaib than stand with me because she kicked me off committees but doesn't want to censure Rashida Tlaib," she said.>

<Throughout the criminal investigations of Donald Trump, the former president has expected his co-defendants, alleged co-conspirators, and potential witnesses for the prosecution to stay fiercely loyal to him. This has included - according to people who've discussed the matter with him - his belief that some of his former lieutenants should risk jail time rather than turn on him.

As he's faced an array of criminal charges, Trump's demands for aides and lawyers to martyr themselves for him hasn't saved him. If anything, it's done the opposite, driving several possible key witnesses to consider throwing Trump under the bus before he gets the chance to do it to them.

That's because, as is often the case with the former president, the notion of extreme loyalty only goes one way. Rolling Stone spoke to seven potential witnesses, former Trump confidants ensnared in the Fulton County, Georgia, and federal criminal probes, their legal advisers, and other sources familiar with the situation. All of them say that Trump's willingness to hang them out to dry has fueled legal strategies focused on self-preservation.

Three of these sources say that Team Trump's comically unsubtle search for patsies and fall guys - MAGA die-hards who would take the blame and possible prison sentences in lieu of Trump - drove a larger wedge between the ex-president and many of his former fellow travelers.

"If I went to jail for Donald Trump, if I did that, what would that do for me and my family?" says a former Trump administration official who has been interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith's office. "I don't think he would even give us lifetime Mar-a-Lago memberships if I did that for him."

Lawyer Sidney Powell, for example, put her adulation of Trump to work in the aftermath of the election by filing bogus lawsuits and making bizarre false claims against voting-machine company Dominion Voting Systems. The moves got her sanctioned by a Michigan court, sued for a billion dollars by Dominion, and charged alongside Trump in Fulton County.

But her legal ordeal has brought her no meaningful help from the former president. Trump has gone out of his way to claim publicly that Powell was never his attorney while other Trump allies have worked to try to pin the blame for any criminal wrongdoing after the election on her. She has since also taken a plea deal this month, a move that shocked a number of top Trump lawyers and loyalists. Trump's communications aide Liz Harrington has recently claimed the former president was "confused" by his allies' plea deals because, in his apparent belief, "there's no crimes here." Powell, for her part, is still trying to have it both ways, portraying herself as a victim of a zealous prosecution and as a stalwart defender of Trump's election lies.

But as some contemplate potentially cooperating with authorities, others have already publicly flipped, a decision that Trump now associates with "weaklings" who betray him.

Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign charged in the Fulton County election-subversion case, has been vocal about her disappointment in the former president's abandonment of his co-defendants. Ellis wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in August that she had been "reliably informed Trump isn't funding any of us who are indicted," and wondered "why isn't [the pro-Trump Super Pac] MAGA, Inc. funding everyone's defense?"

After an attempt at crowdfunding her legal fees, Ellis accepted a plea deal from prosecutors last week. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges," a tearful Ellis said in a courtroom speech accepting responsibility for making false statements about the election that President Joe Biden clearly won....>

<.....For much of this year, Trump attorneys had been concerned that Kenneth Chesebro, one of the legal theorists behind the fake-electors scheme, would end up cooperating with prosecutors. The attorney accepted a plea deal in Fulton County and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to file false documents, but his attorney, Scott Grubman, denied any suggestion that his client was turning against Trump. "I don't think he implicated anyone but himself," Grubman told CNN earlier this month. Still, Chesebro and his legal team have been dropping hints for months that the blame and criminal exposure lay elsewhere in Trumpland, not with him.

"Whether the campaign relied upon that advice as Mr. Chesebro intended," Grubman told Rolling Stone in August, "will have to remain a question to be resolved in court." He continued: "We hope that the Fulton DA and the special counsel fully recognize these issues before deciding who, if anyone, to charge."

These public statements came months after some of Trump's closest allies and legal counselors began amassing informal lists of the best possible fall guys in the Jan. 6 riot-related probes and the Mar-a-Lago documents case. John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Powell, and Chesebro were indeed among the names. The lawyers, such as Chesebro, were easy scapegoats for Team Trump, who have openly signaled that the former president's courtroom strategy will lean on an "advice of counsel" defense.

Asked if Chesebro could tell how much of Trumpland wanted him to take the fall to help insulate Trump, a lawyer who's known Chesebro for years, and has spoken to him about this matter, simply tells Rolling Stone, "Of course."

In private, Trump reserves some of his harshest words for one-time loyalists who are willing to cut deals with prosecutors, securing light sentences in exchange for likely testifying against Trump and others. However, the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner's fury often extends to his lieutenants who don't have formal cooperation agreements - but are simply willing, or legally bound, to answer prosecutors' questions.

According to people close to Trump, the mere act of talking to federal investigators can sometimes be enough to get you branded a traitor or a snitch in the former president's mind. This is because, his longtime associates say, Trump often doesn't see a meaningful difference between witnesses who have formal cooperation agreements (to flip, in other words) and those who happen to tell investigators useful information during interviews....>

<.....Further, Trump and several of his closest advisers have been trying for months to find out how generous his former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has been with prosecutors lately. In June, The New York Times revealed that Meadows had testified before grand juries in both the special counsel's Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case and its investigation into Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This has fueled suspicions among Trump's inner orbit this year, with some advisers now simply referring to Meadows in private communications by using the rat emoji.

Last week, ABC News reported that Meadows was "granted immunity" by the special counsel in order to spill potentially damaging details about Trump and the aftermath of the 2020 election. Meadows' lawyer has since disputed much of the report as "inaccurate," though he refused to say what in the story supposedly wasn't correct.

In the days since that news broke, a few of Trump's political and legal advisers have tried to assure him that the ABC story doesn't mean that Meadows has "flipped," and that he is just doing what he is legally compelled to do in these conversations with federal investigators.

And yet, Trump isn't entirely buying it. In the past week, the ex-president has asked confidants, with clear annoyance in his voice, why his former chief of staff would be telling prosecutors anything about Trump's activities "at all," two people familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone. The former president's position is that Meadows should invoke claims of executive privilege in these cases - the doctrine that some communications with a president should be shielded from outside scrutiny in certain circumstances.

It's a similar move to what former Trump administration official Peter Navarro attempted in defying a congressional subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, landing him a conviction for contempt of Congress.

If Meadows and other witnesses indulged Trump's demands for a blanket defiance of prosecutors, Trump's ex-chief could also risk jail time. Trump's attorneys had attempted to block Meadows from testifying before a federal grand jury investigating the effort to overturn the election, citing executive-privilege claims. But in March, Judge Beryl Howell rejected the argument.

Navarro, a former top trade aide in the Trump White House, stonewalled a subpoena from the congressional Jan. 6 inquiry demanding he appear before the panel and turn over documents related to its investigation of the 2021 insurrection. Navarro's defiance earned him a criminal referral and a conviction on contempt of Congress charges in September. Steve Bannon, Trump's former White House chief strategist and campaign aide, also defied a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House committee and earned a conviction for contempt of Congress. Both men have appealed their convictions.

Trump's lack of loyalty to allies facing legal jeopardy for allegedly assisting him in various crimes has landed him in difficult spots in a number of cases.

"Trump's view of loyalty is one way, and that one way benefits only him. Donald has a history of using and abusing his associates, and he has shown no hesitation in throwing them under the bus when it suits his needs," Michael Cohen, a former Trump fixer and attorney who experienced that lack of reciprocal loyalty firsthand, said. "This is not the kind of person that people are willing to or should sacrifice their freedom for.">

<The indictment of an Alabama man for threatening the prosecutor in Donald Trump's Georgia case should be a clear reminder to the former president to stop putting court staff at risk, a former federal prosecutor has said.

An unsealed indictment on Monday revealed that 59-year-old Arthur Ray Hanson II is charged with two counts of transmitting interstate threats. Hanson threatened both Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat in separate voicemails on August 6.

Willis indicted Trump and 18 others for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election. The former president has pleaded not guilty and has called the multiple court cases against him part of a political witch hunt. Newsweek has sought email comment from Trump's legal team.

The indictment says that Hanson threatened Willis because she intended to charge Trump with his fourth criminal indictment. Labat was menaced because he spoke to several media outlets about the former president on August 6, the day of the voicemails.

"When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you're alone, be looking over your shoulder," Hanson said in a voicemail to Willis.

"If you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Donald Trump and it's gonna be OK, you gonna find out that, after you take that mugshot, some bad s*** is probably gonna happen to you," Hanson said in the voicemail to Labat.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that "the Hanson prosecution gives us a clear marker for what kind of conduct would cross that line and gives us a standard for evaluating future comments and posts the former president makes."

Writing in her Civil Discourse blog on the Substack writing website, Vance added: "It's still hard for me to believe we're talking about a former president of the United States doing this sort of thing.

"Beyond the Hanson case, this helps us understand when, subject to a gag order or not, threats made to witnesses, court employees, politicians, or what have you, can amount to a crime. The threat must involve violence and the speaker must, at a minimum, disregard the risk that the recipient will perceive it that way," Vance wrote.

In reviewing the Hanson indictment, Vance said it should be a lesson for Trump when he is writing online about court staff and potential witnesses in the cases against him.

"Others inclined to make threats would do well to heed the commitment the federal government is making clear here."

She said those inclined to make threats "including a certain former president" should be reminded that they "can still be charged with violations of law."

The judge in Trump's New York civil trial has fined Trump $15,000 for twice threatening or placing court staff at risk.

Last Wednesday, Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump $10,000, after the Republican violated a limited gag order barring personal attacks on court staffers.

The fine came after Trump was called to the witness stand to explain his comment outside the courtroom about "a person who's very partisan sitting alongside" the judge in the case, Engoron.

Weeks previously, Engoron ordered all participants in the trial not to comment publicly about his staff. The narrow gag order imposed on October 3 came after Trump wrote a social-media post attacking the judge's principal law clerk, who sits beside Engoron in court.

The judge ordered Trump to take down that post, but it remained on his campaign website for weeks, for which Engoron initially fined him $5,000.>

<A federal judge in Florida indicated Wednesday that she may delay the start of the classified documents trial of Donald Trump, pointing to the other criminal cases the former president is facing as well as the mounds of evidence his attorneys need to review.

Trump's trial on charges that he hid classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructed government efforts to get them back is currently scheduled for May 20, 2024.

But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appeared ready to side with Trump's attorneys in their request to postpone the trial, saying she “has a hard time seeing how realistically this (current schedule) would work" even as prosecutors pushed her to keep the scheduled start date. The classified documents case filed by special counsel Jack Smith's team is one of four Trump is facing that could go to trial next year. Another federal case, also brought by Smith and charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is scheduled for trial in March in Washington.

A trial in Georgia on state charges that Trump tried to subvert the election could also start next year, though no date has been set, as could a New York trial on charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor in advance of the 2016 election. He is already on trial on a civil case in New York alleging business fraud.

Cannon also pointed to the 1.3 million pages of evidence that prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago case have provided to the defense along with thousands of hours of security video shot at Trump's resort. She questioned whether Trump's lawyers will have adequate time to review the evidence in the next six months.

“I am not quite seeing a level of understanding on your part to these realities,” Cannon told prosecutor Jay Bratt, a member of Smith's team.

Bratt told Cannon that Trump’s attorneys from the beginning have pushed to delay the trial until after the November 2024 election, where he hopes to win back the White House from President Joe Biden.

He said that because of defense motions to delay the Washington trial and dismiss those charges, there is a chance that trial will be postponed.

He told Cannon she “should not let the D.C. trial drive the schedule here.”

He said his team has provided Trump’s lawyers with a directory to the Mar-a-Lago documents to assist their preparation and advised them of the portions of security video they plan to play at trial — footage that prosecutors have said shows boxes being moved in and out of a storage room at the property in an effort to conceal them from investigators.

A Trump valet, Walt Nauta, and a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, have been charged alongside Trump with conspiring to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche told Cannon that she and prosecutors need to be realistic, particularly since the classified documents can only be read in special government rooms that have heightened security.

“It has been extremely difficult to have access,” Blanche said.

Cannon said she will make a decision on the trial date in the coming days.>

'Ooooh, there's soooo much paperwork; time for me to earn my keep and help my boss'.

<Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., announced he won’t seek reelection to his sixth term in Congress, accusing his fellow Republicans of too often “lying to America” and being “fixated on retribution and vengeance.”

Buck in a video shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, first criticized Democratic lawmakers in Washington, accusing them of not supporting law enforcement, “politicizing student loans” and more.

But after confirming that he will not run for reelection next year, the Colorado lawmaker quickly turned his ire to the colleagues on his side of the aisle. Buck said while many Americans “are rightfully concerned about our nation's future,” if they’re looking to GOP lawmakers, “their hope for Republicans to take decisive action maybe [sic] in vain.”

“Too many Republican leaders are lying to America, claiming that the 2020 election was stolen, describing January 6 as an unguided tour of the Capitol, and asserting that the ensuing prosecutions are a weaponization of our justice system,” Buck said in the video.

Buck’s criticism is an unusual move from a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the House’s most conservative lawmakers.

Buck did vote to certify the 2020 presidential election, despite false allegations from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans that there was widespread fraud in the race for the White House. The Colorado lawmaker last month also opposed Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as a speaker of the House candidate because he refused to acknowledge Trump lost the election.

“It is impossible for the Republican Party to confront our problems and offer a course correction for the future, while being obsessively fixated on retribution and vengeance for contrived injustices of the past,” he added.

“The Republican Party of today, however, is ignoring self-evident truths about the rule of law and limited government in exchange for self-serving lies,” Buck added. “I made a decision to leave Congress because tough votes are being replaced by social media status.”

Buck last month was one of eight Republican lawmakers who voted to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from his role in the top job. The Colorado Republican has spoken out against McCarthy launching an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

But Buck has particularly criticized McCarthy’s approach to spending legislation in the lower chamber, such as the temporary compromise he passed earlier this year with support from Democrats to dodge a government shutdown.

“We are $33 trillion in debt and on track to hit $50 trillion by 2030,” Buck previously shared on X. “We cannot continue to fund the government by continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills. That’s why I voted to oust @SpeakerMcCarthy. We must change course to sensible budgeting and save our country.”>

<The defeated candidate in Franklin, Tennessee’s mayoral election last month claims her loss was a result of election fraud.

Gabrielle Hanson, who has not made any posts on her social media accounts after her resounding loss to incumbent Ken Moore, broke her silence with an appearance on the “Arizona Today” podcast released Sunday.

“Outside of Donald Trump, I don’t think there’s anybody that’s run for office that’s been as persecuted as I was,” Hanson claimed.

But last month’s election result wasn’t close. Moore got 12,822 votes as opposed to Hanson’s 3,322 total vote tally.

Yet, Hanson appears not to be prepared to accept defeat. In Sunday’s podcast, she claimed her campaign encountered several voting irregularities even though she didn’t offer proof to support her assertions.>

<Democrat Joan Shannon, a long-standing member of Burlington City Council, formally announced she is entering the race to be the next mayor of Burlington.

Shannon announced her bid at Burlington City Hall on Thursday afternoon. She is now the third female to enter the race for the 2024 mayoral election.

Democrat Karen Paul and progressive Emma Mulvaney-Stanik have also launched campaigns. Currently, the three women are the only candidates running.

If a woman is elected, she will be the first female mayor of Burlington. And outgoing mayor Miro Weinberger said after 150 years of male leaders, he thinks it's time for a change.

“It is really striking that we’ve had more than 40 mayors now without a woman in this role," Weinberger said. "And it would be great if that changed.”

Each of the candidates has outlined the need to address the public health and drug crisis, as well as the lack of affordable housing in Burlington.

Elaine Haney, director of Emerge Vermont, said if a female is elected, however, her influence will go beyond their political agenda.

“It’s important for women who are considering running for office, or who wish they could be involved in their communities more, or for young girls to see examples of other women in leadership in their communities," Haney said.

However, there is still more time for candidates to enter the race.

Party nominations are expected to take place in December, and voters will elect the next mayor at Town Meeting Day in March.>

I hope this snowflake goes down hard; she is a sanctimonious twit and insufferable at best.

<A number of House Republicans voted with Democrats against a resolution to censure Rashida Tlaib.

The resolution was introduced by Marjorie Taylor Greene and moved to censure the Democratic Representative over her response to the Israel-Hamas war.

Tlaib, a staunch Israel critic, has been condemned by some of her colleagues like Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Ritchie Torres and Josh Gottheimer.

She was among U.S. legislators who last month introduced a congressional resolution urging "an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine".

"All human life is precious, and the targeting of civilians, no matter their faith or ethnicity, is a violation of international humanitarian law," the proposed resolution read.

While condemning violence on both sides, she has also accused Israel of creating "apartheid" conditions in Gaza and committing "genocide" against Palestinians.

On October 7, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest ever airstrikes on Gaza, followed by ground operations. As of Thursday, the Palestinian death toll had passed 7,300, the Associated Press reported, citing the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas incursion, according to the Israeli government, the AP said.

Greene said her measure censured Tlaib for "antisemitic activity, sympathizing with terrorist organizations and leading an insurrection at the United States Capitol Complex," referring to an October 18 rally at the Capitol Tlaib spoke at, calling for a ceasefire.

But with 13 Democrats abstaining and 23 Republicans voting to kill the motion, it was not passed, with the final tally 222 to 186.

Taylor Greene posted a photo of the voting roll call on X, formerly Twitter, showing the Republicans who voted to kill the motion.

They are:

Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota

Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado

Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina

Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia

Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin

Rep. (Harriet) Hageman of Wyoming

Rep. Darrell Issa of California

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota

Rep. Doug LaMalfa of California

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky

Rep. Tom McClintock of California

Rep. Richard McCormick of Georgia

Rep. Max Miller of Ohio

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas

Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia

Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio

Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin

Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan

Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan

Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan

Rep. John Duarte of California

In a statement last week, Tlaib responded to Taylor Greene's efforts to censure her.

She said: "I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. I will not be bullied, I will not be dehumanized, and I will not be silenced."

She added: "I will continue to call for ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home."

Newsweek has contacted Tlaib and Taylor Greene by email to comment on this story.>

<Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on Thursday became one of the highest-profile elected Democrats to go public with her concerns about the centrist group No Labels’ third-party presidential bid.

“No Labels is perilous to our democracy," she told reporters. “I hesitate to say No Labels because they do have labels. They’re called no taxes for the rich. No child tax credit for children. They're called let's undo the Affordable Care Act.”

Pelosi delivered her remarks at a breakfast event organized by the Democratic-centrist group Third Way, which has taken on the role of one of No Labels' chief antagonists this cycle.

Pelosi said she has ignored No Labels, even when she was a target of the group as speaker of the House, but 2024’s election is a different case.

“When they jeopardize the reelection of Joe Biden as president of the United States, I can no longer remain silent on that,” she said.

No Labels national co-chair, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.), said in a statement it was "disheartening to see Nancy Pelosi literally make things up about No Labels to score political points. She ascribes positions to No Labels that they never took."

The nonprofit is seeking access to the ballot across the country with the idea of putting together a unity ticket that would be led by one Republican and one Democrat. The group, which is currently formulated as a nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, has not yet announced who would lead such a ticket.

The latest memo from No Labels states that there’s an unprecedented appetite for a third-party or independent candidate this election cycle, partly because President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the likely candidates for both major parties, have low favorability ratings.

Pelosi disputed the premise of the group’s bid and said that once Biden is more frequently on the campaign trail voters will return to the fold.

Third Way President Jonathan Cowan added that early interest in third-party candidates is a way for people to express their discontent. But he said he suspected interest in No Labels and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent, would drop in popularity as next year's general election campaign gets underway.

At the heart of Third Way and Pelosi’s concern about No Labels is that a moderately successful third-party candidate could win enough electoral college votes so that neither major party nominee wins the majority required to secure the presidency. Under this scenario, the outcome of the presidential election would be determined by congressional delegations voting for the president, of which Republicans control more than Democrats....>

<.....It is unlikely for a third-party candidate to win electoral college votes, but they fear if the election is forced onto the congressional delegations, No Labels could hand the White House to the Republican candidate.

No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy said the organization was preparing for that potential outcome but wouldn’t nominate a ticket that it didn’t think could win the election outright, in an interview on CNN.

Pelosi has a somewhat contentious history with No Labels, which once considered launching a primary challenge against her and developed a plan to portray her as a divisive and partisan force during the Trump years.

But, until Thursday, she had not come out against the group’s 2024 plans. In doing so, she added to a growing chorus of individuals and organizations across the Democratic Party spectrum ramping up criticism of No Labels.

On Monday, Clancy faced off in a debate with Rahna Epting, the executive director for the progressive group MoveOn Political Action.

During the nonpartisan Open to Debate program, Clancy was pressed on different fronts including why his group had not yet settled on a candidate.

“We’re still working through our process for how we’re going to put up a ticket," Clancy said. "We put out some polling about the different impacts that a Democrat or Republican could have at the top of the ticket, but we’ll be out with details later in November.”

No Labels held an event earlier this year with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-Utah), and has relationships with other centrist politicians.

Monday’s debate eventually turned into a polite back-and-forth. But underneath it was a substantial conflict between the two groups. No Labels has already secured access to the November 2024 ballot in 12 states — and MoveOn has petitioned secretaries of states to investigate No Labels as a dark money group.

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” Epting said of No Labels’ efforts to try to get on state ballots as a political party, while keeping donors secret under its current formulation as a nonprofit.

“If No Labels wants to be taken seriously, they need to be disclosing their donors and having more transparency, so the voters of this country understand who is propping up this effort,” Epting added. Controversial GOP megadonor Harlan Crow is one of the organization's backers.

Clancy deflected Epting’s attack, saying it was just a way to smear the organization.

“MoveOn cites this all the time as if this is evidence of some secret plot,” Clancy said, without going into detail about Crowe or No Labels’ donors.>

<We here at Salon have been documenting Donald Trump's plans for his restoration ever since he was exiled to his Palm Beach social club on January 20, 2021. It was clear from that moment on that he was plotting his comeback and the people around him weren't just licking their wounds and preparing to move on, they were readying plans to ensure that Trump's second term permanently solidified their power. They've been hard at work ever since.

Their project began the previous fall, with a plan called "Schedule F" which was implemented just 13 days before the election. The presidential edict called for the stripping of all the executive branch departments, from the FBI to intelligence agencies to the Pentagon and, of course, the usual suspects at the EPA and the IRS. Biden reversed this upon taking office and Congress passed some roadblocks to trying it in the future but nobody believes they will be effective if Trump, or frankly, any Republican, once again assumes the presidency. (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has endorsed this concept promising to "slit the throats" of government bureaucrats if he were to take office.)

Trump has continued giving speeches on the subject although they don't get much coverage in the mainstream media. In the summer of 2022, before he had announced his run, he addressed his own vanity "think tank," the America First Policy Institute:

“We need to make it much easier to fire rogue bureaucrats who are deliberately undermining democracy or, at a minimum, just want to keep their jobs. They want to hold onto their jobs. Congress should pass historic reforms empowering the president to ensure that any bureaucrat who is corrupt, incompetent or unnecessary for the job can be told—did you ever hear this—‘You’re fired, get out, you’re fired.’ [You] have to do it. Deep state. Washington will be an entirely different place.”

Needless to say, Trump's notion of who is corrupt, incompetent or necessary is purely dictated by their loyalty to him personally.

There is also Trump's Agenda 47, a laundry list of extremist right-wing "policies" described by Salon's Chauncy DeVega this way:

Agenda 47 would consist of an end to birthright citizenship, further criminalizing transgender people and the LGBTQI community more broadly, expanding the thought crime and other censorship laws to end the teaching of "critical race theory" and to defeat "Woke" and Black Lives Matter, attacking academic freedom and replacing it with "patriot education," implementing a national stop and frisk law, pardoning the Jan. 6 terrorists, putting homeless people in camps or some other designated area under threat of arrest, building high tech "freedom cities," ending the professional civil service and replacing it with right-wing political appointees and other such partisan agents, gutting the Department of Justice and other parts of the government that opposed Trump's attacks on democracy and the rule of law, executing drug dealers, starting a trade war with China, and making "peace" with Vladimir Putin by withdrawing support for the Ukrainian people and their freedom struggle. In many ways, Agenda 47 is a continuation of the fascist and other authoritarian policies Trump put in place during his first regime but now made even more extreme and cruel.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

And let's not forget Project 2025, a very special plan by the Heritage Foundation to be ready on Day One with a full roster of MAGA replacements for all those Deep State bureaucrats Trump and his minions will be firing. Peter Dans, the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project said, "We need to flood the zone with conservatives. This is a clarion call to come to Washington. People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’”

MAGA Wants To Abolish Plea Deals To Save Donald Trump

The Heritage Foundation has experience with this sort of thing. They were tasked with staffing the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, another daft Republican experiment to rebuild a fantasy government based entirely on their conservative ideology. You may remember how that turned out:

Andrew Burns, 23, a Red Cross volunteer who had taught English in rural China, felt going to Iraq would help him pursue a career in humanitarian aid. Todd Baldwin, 28, a legislative aide for Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), thought the opportunity was too good to pass up. John Hanley, 24, a Web site editor, wanted to break into the world of international relations. Anita Greco, 25, a former teacher, and Casey Wasson, 23, a recent college graduate in government, just needed jobs....>

<....For months they wondered what they had in common, how their names had come to the attention of the Pentagon, until one day they figured it out: They had all posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank.

They didn't have any experience doing things like building a stock market from scratch or running massive infrastructure reconstruction projects in a country that had been razed by "shock and awe," but the Heritage Foundation did make sure they were all staunchly pro-life, so there was that. The CPA was an utter disaster, of course. I think we can be sure that the same level of expertise will be tapped if Schedule F, Agenda 47 and Project 2025 are implemented.

This week the New York Times reported on yet another project in the works, this one spearheaded by the odious Stephen Miller and Trump's former bodyman turned hatchet man, John McEntee. Under the auspices of yet another Trump-affiliated institution, the "MAGA ACLU" called American First Legal, these two have been tasked with finding legal advisers for a new Trump administration who will not be unduly constrained by musty old traditions like "the rule of law" or "the Constitution." Think John Eastman or Jeffrey Clark, although those two will likely no longer have law licenses by that time and may even be in jail. (It's unclear if that would be an impediment to serving in a new Trump administration, however.)

What's most interesting about this new project is that they have decided that they no longer want the input or participation from the Federalist Society which is now considered a bunch of RINOs who can't be trusted:

“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official who runs a think tank with close ties to the former president. He argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake.

Such comments may surprise those who view the Federalist Society as hard-line conservatives. But the move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history.

The purges have begun, I guess. It was only a matter of time.

All of these various agendas and projects are designed for one purpose only, to "deconstruct the administrative state" as former Trump adviser and podcaster Steve Bannon has called for. And considering the Republican Party track record, not to mention Donald Trump's, the prospects of it being successful are very dim. They aren't competent at much of anything when it comes to governing anymore but they are very good at tearing things down and causing chaos, destabilizing everything they touch. Unfortunately, I don't think there's been a worse time in our history for such a stress test on the US government and our democracy. It's important to make sure they don't get the chance to transform any of these plans into action.>

<Just as the Israel Defense Forces encircle the Hamas stronghold of Gaza City, calls for a "ceasefire" are accelerating.

For the first week or two after the Hamas Holocaust of Oct. 7, which saw the most Jews massacred in a single day since Hitler and hundreds more taken hostage into Gaza, calls for a ceasefire were mostly relegated to far-left, self-hating "Jewish" groups such as IfNotNow and so-called Jewish Voice for Peace, along with the fifth column, jihad-sympathizing congressmen who comprise the House "Hamas Caucus," such as Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). In those halcyon days just a short while ago, even White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Hamas Caucus calls for a ceasefire were "repugnant" and "disgraceful."

How the times have changed.

During a campaign event Wednesday evening in Minnesota, Jean-Pierre's boss, President Joe Biden, announced his support for an IDF "pause" in Gaza. (Notably, Biden's pronouncement came in response to a question from JVP activist Jessica Rosenberg, a seemingly transgender woman who introduced herself as a "rabbi" despite Jewish law's clear stance against female or LGBT rabbis.) There is no way to square Biden's newfound equivocation with his clearer stance toward the beginning of the war. As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted on Thursday, "The Biden administration is mincing words. Calling it a 'pause' instead of a 'ceasefire' makes no difference to Hamas and only gives the terrorists the advantage."

Exactly right....>

<....Exactly right.

Biden's obfuscation aside, the reality is that his call for a "pause" represents a 180-degree turn from his earlier, surprisingly clarion remarks standing with Israel. To be sure, everyone should have seen this coming; Biden must secure the Democratic Party's left flank, and polls have suggested Biden's strong initial support for Israel has cost him among Muslim Americans, a reliable Democratic voting bloc. But the president's reversal came quicker than expected. And early evidence suggests Biden's call for an IDF "pause" in Gaza has quickly percolated throughout the Democratic ecosystem; anti-Israel Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), for instance, released a statement on Thursday "urg[ing] Israel to immediately reconsider its approach" in Gaza.

How soon the blood of 1,400-plus slain by a medieval Islamist death cult is forgotten.

Some of those who have been calling for a "ceasefire" or "pause" in Gaza just want to see more Jews slaughtered. They want Hamas to remain functionally intact and they want Hamas to replicate in the future its barbaric pogrom of Oct. 7, which Hamas official Ghazi Hamad openly said this week the terrorist outfit would do until Israel is annihilated. They want to see the (primarily Jewish) hostages currently held in Gaza rot. Tlaib, for instance, who once infamously said that thinking about the Holocaust gives her a "calming feeling," is squarely in the "want more dead Jews" category. There is an old Yiddish expression that is the only proper response to these absolute scumbags: Gai kaken oifen yam! Google it.

Other "ceasefire" or "pause" advocates, such as Biden, are of a less nakedly genocidal bent. These leftists, à la John Lennon crooning in the abysmal song "Imagine," foolishly think that all sides laying down their arms will lead to peace. Never mind, as Dennis Prager has long pointed out, that if Israel were to ever lay down its arms, it would cease to exist the very next day. Never mind, furthermore, that there will never, ever be peace in the Levant with Hamas, a fundamentalist Sunni jihadist organization indistinguishable from al-Qaeda or ISIS, as part of any "solution."

In reality, there is an extraordinarily simple way to expedite the end of all hostilities in Gaza: Hamas releases all hostages taken on Oct. 7 and unconditionally surrenders to Israel, just as Germany and Japan unconditionally surrendered to the Allied Powers to end World War II. If Hamas did that, the war would end tomorrow. There would be no further casualties. The conversation would instead shift to what the Gaza Strip will look like once freed from Hamas' jackboot.

Surely, all reasonable people can agree that is something to look forward to.

Across two successive Democratic presidential administrations, left-wing foreign policy has been besotted with the notion of "balancing" powers in the Middle East. Under President Barack Obama, this took the form of undermining America's regional allies, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and bolstering its regional foes, such as the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood. Now, under President Biden, with many of the same goons once again running foreign policy, it has taken the form of hamstringing Israel and offering aid and comfort to Hamas. At some point, such delusions cease being merely naive and become outright evil.

It has been a long time since the surrender of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Many in the West have forgotten what it actually takes, and what it actually means, to win a war. It is time for Israel to provide a helpful reminder.>