<More triple posted mass kissing barf to continue gaining favoritism to break the guidelines repeatedly, and yet another blatant, never-ending attempt at silencing the righteous. It just goes on and on and on. Members have to put up with years of this nonsense because CGs doesn't enforce it's [sic] own guidelines.

Is FTB supposed to tolerate such obvious garbage? It's typical of biased trolls and editors to believe that they and only they are entitled to voice their one-sided opinions but the rest of us who tell the truth are supposed to remain silent or get deleted and suspended. It's a shallow, unethical person that [sic] doesn't care to hear the truth.

Freedom of speech is a two-way street, like it or not.

<Former staunch allies of Michigan GOP Chairwoman Kristina Karamo, who assumed the role following an unsuccessful secretary of state campaign, are now uniting to remove her as the party remains mired in infighting and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

It's a swift fall for Karamo, an election conspiracy theorist who in February was overwhelmingly elected by grassroots activists to lead the state party through the next presidential election until early 2025. Michigan Republicans were coming off historic losses in the 2022 midterms, and Karamo promised to rebuild the state party into “a political machine that strikes fear in the heart of Democrats.”

Just nine months later, a petition is circulating within the state GOP calling for a vote to remove Karamo as chairwoman, according to internal communications obtained by The Associated Press. Party members supporting the petition say Karamo has done little in her time to advance the party, which had at least $500,000 in debt as of last month.

The turmoil among Donald Trump loyalists who have largely controlled formal state GOP operations since 2020 has added to growing discord among Michigan Republicans who are grasping for a strategy to turn around the party’s string of recent losses.

“I love Kristina as an individual, as a person. I think she’s an amazing, amazing woman when you talk to her one-on-one about stuff. But her administration and the way she’s operating has been an absolute disappointment,” said Jon Smith, a former district chair of the Michigan GOP who stepped down last month.

Karamo did not respond to a request for comment by AP.

The Michigan GOP has historically been one of the most powerful state parties in the country, led by the likes of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Ronna McDaniel, who is now the chair of the Republican National Committee. With millions in fundraising, the state party helped Michigan Republicans hold control of the governor's office and both chambers of the Legislature from 2011 to 2018.

But since Trump’s 2016 presidential victory in Michigan, fervent grassroots Trump supporters have gradually gained prominence within the party. In 2022, Democrats swept every statewide race and gained control of all levels of state government for the first time in 40 years.

Karamo, a former college instructor, rose to prominence after claiming she saw election fraud as a poll challenger in Detroit. No evidence of voting fraud was found, and she lost by 14 percentage points in the secretary of state race last year after being backed by Trump. Three months later, she was elected by Republican delegates to lead the Michigan GOP.

Many party members who supported Karamo’s candidacy have lost faith, and infighting has consumed the GOP in recent months.

It escalated to the point of a physical altercation during an executive committee meeting on July 8. Mark DeYoung, chairman of the Clare County Republican Party, was hospitalized after a party activist who was unhappy that the meeting was closed “kicked him in the crotch,” according to a Clare police report. The activist, James Chapman, was later charged with assault and battery and disturbing the peace....>

<.....Smith, the former 5th District chair who said he still gets calls every day about party affairs, estimated that between “55% and 65%” of the state's more than 100 Republican Party state committee members currently want to remove Karamo as chair.

The petition calling for a vote on Karamo’s removal was first circulated by a state committee member, Daniel Lawless, on Oct. 24. It was first reported by The Detroit News.

“I regret to say that after much thought and reflection, I have become convinced that Kristina Karamo cannot lead us in this effort and it is upon us, the State Committee, to replace her and move our party forward,” Lawless wrote in an email to other state committee members that was obtained by the AP.

Half of the party’s state committee members would need to sign the petition before it could go to a vote, which would require a 75% approval to oust Karamo, Smith said. The petition is just one of multiple efforts to remove Karamo.

While internal emails show other committee members support Karamo's removal, it’s unclear how many have signed the petition. Lawless said he “will make public comment at an appropriate time,” when asked how many members had signed the petition.

The potential vote follows the party's biannual leadership conference on Mackinac Island in September. The conference attracted six presidential candidates in 2015, the state's last contested GOP presidential primary.

This year, the event was headlined by former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, actor Jim Caviezel and presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. The Michigan GOP agreed to pay Caviezel $110,000 for his appearance, according to a contract obtained by AP.

“We had a goal to raise a lot of money for that event, and unfortunately, that did not occur,” Karamo said about the conference on Oct. 19, according to a video posted online by the party.

Michigan GOP leadership outlined the financial situation that day at an event in Macomb County, showing that the party had at least $500,000 in debt. Karamo, who refused to answer a question about how much money the party currently had, blamed the debt on previous leadership. She said that “we are a ways away from where we would like to be,” when asked whether the party could finally support candidates in the 2024 election.

Internal banking documents obtained by AP showed that the party had $35,000 cash on hand as of Aug. 10.

Warren Carpenter resigned from his position as one of 13 Republican district committee chairs following the Mackinac leadership conference due to what he called “financial malfeasance.” Carpenter, who said he was once a supporter of Karamo, is now leading his own effort to remove her.

He said that when a vote occurs to remove Karamo, he doesn't believe “she walks out of that room with more than 15% support.”>

<Donald Trump, the leading Republican in the 2024 presidential race, said Republican judges have "screwed him" in his court cases to appear fair during his rally in Miami tonight. This came shortly before the Hialeah mayor honored him by naming a street after the former president.

Trump spent a fair amount of time attacking his political opponents during his rally in Hialeah. He said former house speaker Nancy Pelosi was "nuts," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis won the election only because of his support, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie was "dumb" for calling him out during the second GOP debate and he could knock US President Joe Biden down with a weak gust of wind.

He also referred to President Biden and his Democratic colleagues "cheating dogs," alluding to false claims of election fraud in 2020, which have been debunked multiple times, and delivered one last jab to his presidential rivals, saying the third GOP debate was "the least viewed debate in the history of politics."

He eventually alluded to Judge Arthur Engoron, the justice presiding over his civil case in New York, which accuses him of inflating his assets to obtain favorable bank loans. He accused Engoron, along with other judges, of being partisan when evaluating his cases.

He said Democratic judges target him because of his political strength and Republicans purposefully "screw him" to appease onlookers and "seem fair." Furthermore, he condemned all news stations and most Republicans, excluding politicians he has personal relationships with including Kari Lake who lost the race for Arizona governor in 2022.

Former president Donald Trump appealed to Hialeah's Cuban American community. Trump greeted a crowd that seemed to worship the ground he walked on. A city council candidate in Hialeah, which is about 15 miles down the road from his rivals participating in the third Republican presidential debate, used Trump's picture on campaign signs signaling his loyalty. At a polling station this week, scores of people wore common Trump supporter attire, including the red "Make America Great Again" hats and blue "Trump 2024" flags.

Outside the venue where the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination was speaking, supporters were camped out more than a day in advance and waved at honking commuters going by, hoping to outdo his competitors debating a half-hour's drive away.

“All we want is to get ahead in life. It seems a lot of politicians, all they do is set obstacles in our way,” said Marcel Perez, a Hialeah resident who accompanied his wife, mother, uncle and father-in-law to vote Tuesday. “Trump is the right person for the job because he opens the door for us.”

Cuban voters in this region have helped award Trump and other Republicans huge victories in previous years, assisting in Florida's realignment from a traditional swing state to one that is substantially more conservative. Democrats pushing for President Joe Biden's reelection hope to reclaim some of the Latino vote, and they organized a press conference before the Republican debate and Trump's rally.

The event was used by Trump's team to demonstrate his strength heading into 2024 and to hammer home the notion that the five contenders debate in Miami are [sic] trivial given his massive lead in the polls.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who worked as his White House press secretary, has backed him. According to Chris LaCivita, a senior Trump adviser, the team intends to obtain a larger share of the Hispanic vote in 2024. Trump performed better among Hispanics in 2020 than he did in 2016, despite Biden capturing a nationwide majority.

"What was emerging as a problem has now become a full-blown crisis, which gives President Trump, I think, an opportunity to really increase his standing and vote share in the Hispanic community," he said. Trump's campaign is also utilizing ads on Hispanic TV and radio with targeted mail. In terms of a general election, and prospective rematch with US President Joe Biden, his advisers believe Trump's stances on the economy, foreign policy, the US-Mexico border and social issues will do well with a Latino audience.>

<The Republican Party is in disarray.

Former President Donald Trump has created a solution where he alone can fix it. The catch-22 is that Trump is also the problem. And when it comes to his advantages, he can't be on the ballot forever.

For now, the GOP looks increasingly like a regional party that struggles to do the bare minimum of governing while pushing policies that make voters recoil.

Just look at Tuesday's results, Republicans failed to oust Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a popular Democrat, by tying him to President Joe Biden. While in Virginia, GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin's push for a reset on the abortion rebuke turned into a stunning rebuke. As Nate Silver pointed out, this is on the heels of the Trump-era special election struggles that featured Democrats winning an Alabama US Senate seat. Democrats also flipped Georgia and Arizona on the presidential level.

"I think the GOP last night died as a coherent national party and is now just a series of regional tribes," conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, linking to his own longer analysis of the party's woes.

Even Trump himself is trying to have it both ways.

"Daniel Cameron lost because he couldn't alleviate the stench of Mitch McConnell," Trump wrote on Truth, his social media platform, just days after effusively praising Cameron. "I told him early that's a big burden to overcome. McConnell and Romney are Kryptonite for Republican Candidates."

While the former president has accelerated a major realignment of the nation's voters, when he's not on the ballot the MAGA coalition has mostly been in MIA. His largest legacy, cementing a Supreme Court majority that authored a landmark opinion gutting nationwide abortion rights has turned into an electoral albatross his party can't escape. And even Trump can't always ride his own wave as he illustrated in 2020 when he fell flat on a night that was generally pretty good for the GOP.

If this sounds slightly familiar, it's because Democrats once faced a similar issue. Obama-era Democrats failed to show up in large enough numbers in special and midterm elections. Promising rising stars were unceremoniously booted from office as the GOP rode a Tea Party-inspired wave in 2010 and then retook the Senate in 2014. Now, some of the very same lawmakers who rose to power on the anti-establishment wave are finding themselves tagged as "RINOs."

It's this struggle that might be the most concerning for the GOP.

More traditional Republicans recognize that even in a limited government, you have to keep the lights on, avoid debt default, and occasionally hand voters things they crave like reliable bridges and cheaper prescription drugs. Yet, the more Trump-aligned elements in Congress have recoiled against these initiatives.

Trump allies have labeled McConnell, the top Senate Republican, as a traitor for wanting more money for roads since it required working with Biden. A band of House Republicans ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from power for avoiding a government shutdown. And almost daily on social media, GOP lawmakers war with themselves over who "fights" enough. This is to say nothing that voters have clearly shown that rejecting election results or worse yet trying to disenfranchise them will poison you in competitive races.

"Republicans are losing Republican voters because the base is fed up with weak Republicans who never do anything to actually stop the communist democrats," Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on X of her election takes. Just last week, she was fighting with one of the House's most conservative members.

The more traditional wing has tried to prepare for a post-Trump future. McConnell blamed the 2022 midterms on issues like "candidate quality," but it was his own protege, Cameron, who lost to Beshear by 5 points. Meanwhile, Youngkin, a sweater-vest-wearing former private equity CEO, might be the perfect generic Republican for the Chamber of Commerce wing. His brand is now tainted after Tuesday's struggles.

It isn't all bad news for the Party of the Lincoln. The Republican has asserted a stranglehold on former swing states like Iowa and Florida. And in this era of hyper-partisanship, national elections are likely always to be competitive. In long run, cutting into Democrats' advantage with voters of color will likely pay dividends. Narratives about party control can also reverse themselves quickly, just look at the Obama era.

In the meantime, the path out of this wilderness might be difficult to find.>

<It was a race that will never get the attention of an Ohio abortion vote, a Democratic governor winning reelection in deep-red Kentucky, or Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s failed attempt to wrest control of his state legislature.

But for the sake of the Republican Party, it perhaps should.

While Gov. Andy Beshear (D) steered his way to a relatively easy victory Tuesday, Kentucky Republicans swept every other statewide race. And no candidate took more votes than Secretary of State Michael Adams (R).

Adams is merely the latest candidate to show his party how successful it can be when it doesn’t marginalize itself with such things as election denialism — and even fights back against it.

He went further than most any other prominent Republican nationwide to repudiate the idea that the 2020 election was stolen — a bit of a lower-profile Brad Raffensperger, if you will.

“The biggest threat is not fraud,” Adams said last year, “it’s people who are claiming election fraud, and it’s starting to get dangerous.”

Adams also repudiated claims about “machines being rigged to the internet and millions of votes being moved around, manipulated,” adding: “That’s totally, totally false.”

Adams, like Raffensperger, faced a primary challenge for his apostasy, but he turned it aside easily. He went on to run in the general election on his expansion of voting rights, while running an ad featuring Beshear praising his bipartisan record.

Adams wound up taking 61 percent and nearly 785,000 votes, according to the most recent results, compared with GOP gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron’s 47 percent and 627,000. Adams’s vote total also outpaced four other statewide GOP candidates.

It’s possible to oversell one race, but this is part of a demonstrated pattern dating to the 2022 election.

Election deniers cost the Republican Party dearly in that campaign, possibly up to and including control of the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, candidates who distanced themselves from Donald Trump’s stolen-election claims registered some of the best performances.

Here’s a look at the relative performances of statewide candidates, with an assist from The Washington Post’s 2022 review of election deniers’ performances. (The Post defined election deniers as those who questioned President Biden’s victory, opposed counting Biden’s electoral college votes, expressed support for partisan ballot reviews, signed on to election-overturning lawsuits, and/or legitimized the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally.)

In Arizona, the statewide ballot was rife with GOP election deniers such as Kari Lake and Blake Masters, who lost. Meanwhile, state Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R) ran a more traditional campaign and sailed to reelection by double digits — taking six percentage points more than any other Republican. In Nevada, the four worst-performing statewide GOP candidates were all election deniers who lost, even as now-Gov. Joe Lombardo and two other Republicans won. In Ohio, election-denying J.D. Vance won a Senate seat but performed worse than eight other statewide Republicans. While he took 53 percent, they all took between 56 percent and 62 percent.

In Georgia, the two worst-performing statewide candidates were also the two election deniers: Senate candidate Herschel Walker and now-Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr each asserted that Georgia’s results were legitimate, and each won by at least five points.

In Kansas, the two worst performers were election-denying gubernatorial candidate Derek Schmidt and now-Attorney General Kris Kobach. They took 47 and 51 percent, respectively, while the GOP averaged 59 percent in other statewide races.

In New Hampshire, election deniers running for both the Senate and the House way underperformed Gov. Chris Sununu (R). They averaged 45 percent of the vote, while Sununu took 57 percent.

Some post-2022 studies have found that GOP election deniers performed more than two points worse than non-election deniers. That was potentially enough to swing some close and important races, including Lake’s and the Senate races in Georgia and Nevada.

The message is clear for the GOP when it comes to the promise of candidates who don’t spend their time embracing such theories to win primaries and build their profile. Now we have more evidence.>

<A group of moderate Republicans is threatening to vote against a spending bill funding the a [sic] variety of federal agencies including the Treasury Department due to language restricting abortion.

It adds to significant struggles House Republicans already face in trying to pass appropriations bills with a narrow and ideologically disparate majority.

House Republican leadership is hoping to pass the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill this week.

In addition to Treasury, the bill funds the White House, the federal judiciary and Washington, D.C.

At issue is a provision to restrict federal funding from being used to enforce D.C.'s Reproductive Health Nondiscrimination Act, a 2014 law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees who seek an abortion or contraception.

The legislation has long been a target for congressional Republicans, who tried to repeal it as early as 2015.

"The fact that the FSGG bill includes a repeal of the city of Washington, D.C.'s policy causes a lot of concerns," said Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who represents a district that President Biden won in 2020.

Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.), another Biden-district Republican, told Axios "there's probably a group of us that are going to vote against it if they leave it in there."

A House Republican involved in the effort told Axios the group includes at least half a dozen members who "actually respect the role the different levels of government play."

Asked about the size of the group, Duarte said: "Unless [Republican leadership] have got some Democrats in their pocket, it's big enough."

This isn't the first time conservative abortion policy language has threatened an otherwise relatively agreed-upon Republican spending bill.

A bill to fund the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration failed in September after 27 Republicans voted against it due to a provision restricting access to the abortion pill Mifepristone.

Tuesday's election results, in which abortion rights helped propel Democrats to success in several red states, are fueling the concerns among moderate Republicans.

"I don't know if these guys have cable," Duarte said of GOP leadership, "but if they watched the elections last night, the American people are about fed up with abortion regulations being stuffed into every aspect of their lives." "Overall, we have to be much more respectful of women and the challenging decisions that they make and are confronted with," Molinaro said of the election results.

While hardliners were the thorn in former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) side for much of his speakership, moderates have increasingly refused to take difficult votes on bills geared towards placating the House GOP's right flank.

Just this month, House Republicans twice pulled votes on a bill funding the Department of Transportation due to significant cuts to Amtrak opposed by the Northeastern Republicans who are some of the House's most vulnerable members.

Undergirding this frustration is the fact that these bills will never become law – but rather are meant to serve as bargaining chips in negotiations with the Democratic-controlled Senate.

"They've taken a very conservative approach ... some of it's a bitter pill to swallow," said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). "In the end, they're not going to be that way. So they're making us take a bad vote.">

<miskdney... I sincerely suggest that you remove the last half of your user profile. There's nothing wrong with what you have written, but you will be harshly and forever harassed here for posting those words. This ol' bear has seen it a thousand times. Trolls and cyberbullies will constantly come after your every post. They'll watch for you to post, and then swoop down. It's better to maintain your privacy, avoid politics, and just enjoy chess. What's more, some editors will constantly belittle you for not being an accomplished chess player. This is a hurtful website of losers looking to trounce non-grandmasters and non-liberals. It's just what they do here, hour by hour.

Don't debate these hardcore radicals. They never, ever change their minds. They disregard basic facts because they'd rather attack another human for the hell of it. There's a sick, angry narcistic [sic] editor here who keeps a list of anyone who ever voted for a Republican and then informs his vultures to constantly harass that person so they'll leave this website. You'll have no anonymity. You will be called foul names, and constant lies will be made up about you, told and retold to give the appearance of being true -- deliberate mischaracterization of your character. I've seen it happen so many, many times.

<Special counsel Jack Smith is planning to call a number of rank-and-file staffers at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago country club to give testimony in the classified documents case.

This is a massively consequential development for the case, argued former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on CNN — and a weapon that prosecutors don't usually get to have.

"Elie, how important could this source be?" asked anchor Anderson Cooper.

"This is a dream scenario for prosecutors," said Honig.

"Ordinarily in the federal system, when you're a prosecutor, you build your case on a cooperator, who is now your witness," Honig explained. "So what happens? The defense lawyers stand up in closing and they, say folks, you're going convict my client based on the word of a criminal? And then we prosecutors stand up and say to the jury, look, we'd love to call honest, hard-working people to come in and tell you about a crime, but that type of person isn't on the inside on the inside of a crime. Here, they're literally on the inside of a crime. These are honest, hard-working, regular folks, had nothing to do with the crime. They're inside the bedrooms, inside the closets."

"Even if they can't give the whole story A to Z, they can give important details," added Honig. "They saw a box here or there, they overheard a conversation. So if I'm a prosecutor, this is the best-case scenario.">

<The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's election interference case in Washington has ordered the former president to declare whether he intends to use an advice-of-counsel defense ahead of his trial—which could mean that Trump has to hand over his private messages with lawyers to prosecutors.

The former president was indicted on four counts in August for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

It is one of four criminal cases Trump is facing as he campaigns to retake the White House in 2024. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases.

An advice-of-counsel defense applies when a person has gone to a lawyer, disclosed all material facts, and then relied in good faith on the lawyer's advice that no laws were being broken.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to order that Trump provide notice of his intent to assert an advice-of-counsel defense by December 18.

In the motion, they argued that "waiting until the eve of trial" to "raise an advice-of-counsel defense risks causing substantial disruption and delay." The trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024.

By invoking an advice of counsel defense, Trump would waive attorney-client privilege for all communications concerning that defense. That would mean the government is "entitled to additional discovery and may conduct further investigation, both of which may require further litigation and briefing."

In a three-page ruling on Wednesday, Chutkan said Trump must say whether he intends to use the defense no later than January 15. If he does, Trump must also provide prosecutors with all relevant documents by that date.

"As he has consented to do, Defendant shall provide formal notice whether he intends to assert an advice-of-counsel defense by January 15, 2024," Chutkan wrote in the ruling.

"If Defendant does provide affirmative notice of that intent, he must also provide the required discovery to the government at that time: 'any communications or evidence [Defendant] intend[s] to use to establish the defense,' and 'otherwise-privileged communications that [Defendant does] not intend to use at trial, but that are relevant to proving or undermining the advice-of-counsel defense . . . in their entirety.'"

Trump's lawyers have said that the former president had relied on advice from John Eastman, a conservative attorney who was indicted alongside Trump and 17 others in Georgia over their efforts to overturn Trump's election loss in the state.

Trump was indicted in Washington for "following legal advice from an esteemed legal scholar, John Eastman," his lawyer, John Lauro, told NBC's Meet the Press in August.

Newsweek has contacted Trump's attorney for comment via email.>

<Another government funding bill from Republicans was pulled on Thursday morning after many leaders refused to back several pieces of the bill, including one aimed at overturning a law that barred companies from discriminating against employees who use birth control.

The birth control plank was just one of dozens of amendments that were added to the bill from Republican lawmakers, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pledged to pass the budget by the Nov. 17 shutdown deadline.

According to Politico, there were more than 100 amendments proposed in all, including some that drew rebukes from swing-district Republicans.

Rep. Max Miller (R- OH) called it “embarrassing" and "incredibly upsetting” that House GOP leadership had to pull the final passage of the funding bill, reported CNN's Annie Grayer. He went on to bash his colleagues for hyper-partisan amendments to bills that must pass to keep the government open.

The law being targeted by the House GOP is a local Washington, D.C. ordinance that prevents any employer from discriminating against a worker who seeks contraception or family planning services. The GOP bill would block that from taking effect.

In an interview Sunday, Johnson was asked by Fox's Shannon Bream about some of his extreme opinions and bills regarding birth control.

"I really don't remember any of those measures," he told her.

Speaker Johnson agreed to sponsor HR 431, which would ban birth control using the idea of "personhood," giving full legal rights to fertilized eggs. It would ban IUDs and other forms of birth control.

After the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, activists warned that birth control would be targeted, with far-right leaders seeking to block coverage of it or ban it entirely.>

<A group of Republican lawmakers in Michigan and anti-abortion groups have sued state officials in an effort to overturn a constitutional amendment on abortion rights that Michigan voters approved in Tuesday's election.

Several states saw major wins for abortion rights, including Michigan. About 56.7 percent of Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state's constitution that guarantees the "fundamental right to reproductive freedom," which includes abortion care.

Abortion rights have been a major issue across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling that ended the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022. Several conservative-leaning states have enacted abortion bans since, including Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis, a 2024 Republican candidate for president, signed a ban on abortions after six weeks into law.

The lawsuit against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson filed on Wednesday claimed that the new amendment created a "super-right to 'reproductive freedom.'"

"At no time in our nation's history has such a super-right, immune from all legislative action, ever been created by a popular vote outside of the checks and balances of a republican form of government," the lawsuit says.

Michigan law allows amendments to the state constitution that are approved by a ballot measure.

State House members Gina Johnsen and Luke Meerman were listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with state Senator Joseph Bellino Jr.

Newsweek reached out to Johnsen and Meerman via email as well as Bellino via phone for comment.

"Michiganders spoke loud and clear in the last election when they voted overwhelmingly to protect the constitutional freedom for people to make their own decisions about their bodies," Whitmer's press secretary, Stacey LaRouche, told Newsweek via email.

"It shouldn't be lost on people that these right-wing organizations and radical Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are cherry-picking courts to try to once again overturn a constitutionally guaranteed right because they can't win with voters."

LaRouche said that Whitmer "thwarted attempts to undermine reproductive rights when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, and she will do it again with this lawsuit."

Newsweek reached out to Nessel and Benson via email for comment.

Genevieve Marnon, legislative director of Right to Life of Michigan, one of the anti-abortion groups suing Michigan officials, told Newsweek via email, "States have the right to adopt laws legalizing abortion or granting a state constitutional right to abortion following the Dobbs decision, but not laws or constitutional amendments that violate the Federal Constitution."

"Right to Life of Michigan, along with 15 other plaintiffs, seeks a permanent injunction on the implementation and enforcement of Article 1 section 28 (proposal 3) of the Michigan Constitution," Marnon said.

Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan, echoed Marnon's comments, saying that the reproductive rights amendment violates the U.S. Constitution.

"The provisions asserted to be unconstitutional under federal law threaten legal protections for pregnant women seeking healthcare, the rights of physicians to care for patients, and the rights of parents already under attack on many fronts," Listing wrote in a statement.

Abortion rights supporters also saw wins in Ohio, Viriginia and Kentucky.

In Ohio, voters passed a ballot measure that ensured reproductive rights in the state, including abortion access. In Virginia, Democrats took control of the Legislature after Republicans campaigned on enacting a 15-week abortion "limit." Another major win was the reelection of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat who campaigned on abortion rights. He won against Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who previously defended the state's strict abortion laws in court.

Michigan isn't the only state to receive pushback from GOP members following Tuesday's election.

North Dakota state Representative Brandon Prichard told his followers on X, formerly Twitter, to "ignore the results" of Ohio's election.

"Direct democracy should not exist. Case-in-point: Ohio legalizing the slaughter of babies," he posted early Wednesday. "It would be an act of courage to ignore the results of the election and not allow for the murder of Ohio babies. We are probably 10 years away from this opinion being acceptable though.">

<House Republicans have pulled their spending bill for the second time this week, abandoning the massive cuts to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed by the annual funding legislation.

GOP leadership pulled the bill moments before a House vote on Thursday after determining there wouldn't be enough Republican support to pass the legislation. The move is the latest amid an intraparty struggle to unite the conference behind the conservative package, which included clawing back more than $10 billion in IRS funding.

"The fact that Republicans were unable to pass their own spending bill today is indicative of the deep divisions within the party," political analyst Craig Agranoff told Newsweek. "There is a growing rift between moderate Republicans and hardline conservatives, and this rift is making it difficult for Republicans to govern effectively."

Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled the GOP measure days after he won the gavel, signaling his willingness to directly attack one of President Joe Biden's signature achievements. The IRS funding that the Republican-led bill targets stems from the money allocated by Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. The White House has already said that the president would veto the appropriations bill.

While the bill faced opposition from moderate Republicans and the GOP's far-right flank, House Republicans are unified on cutting IRS money. Their inability to pass the spending bill due to other factors, however, puts that goal on hold.

Republicans have been steadfast in their mission to slash IRS funding, arguing that the funds make the agency too powerful and that cutting its budget would make laws more fair to taxpayers. Democrats, on the other hand, argue that eliminating the money would benefit wealthy taxpayers and corporations at the expense of working families.

Republicans were unable to pass their own spending bill today is a sign that the party is in disarray," Agranoff said. "It is also a sign that Mike Johnson may not be the best candidate to lead the Republican Party in the future.

"Johnson is a hardline conservative. His inability to unite the Republican caucus and pass a spending bill could damage his reputation as a leader.

House Republicans are also divided over the bill's abortion-related provisions and FBI funding.

Centrist members of the conference have expressed concerns about one provision that seeks to block Washington, D.C., from enforcing a law that protects employees from workplace discrimination based on their reproductive health decisions.

Representative Marc Molinaro of New York this week said Congress needs "to be much more respectful of the difficult decision that women have to make," noting that "there's probably about five to eight of us that have expressed a concern regarding the one provision being placed in the bill."

At the same time, the GOP's more conservative members want to strike FBI money that they think emboldens the political weaponization of which that they've accused the agency.

"I don't believe that the FBI deserves a massive new headquarters or Washington field office," Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida said this week while introducing his amendment that sought to bar the bureau from using federal funding for a new headquarters.

But Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas disagreed, calling it bad policy for lawmakers "to deny a federal agency that is in serious need, in my opinion, of an improvement to their headquarters.">

<Donald Trump's lawyer was mocked on social media after objecting to her own legal document being used in court.

Alina Habba, Trump's lead defense attorney, took issue with a document her own team entered when Ivanka Trump testified as a witness in her father's civil fraud trial on Wednesday.

Habba is representing the former president in a lawsuit New York Attorney General Letitia James filed in 2022, alleging that Trump and top executives at The Trump Organization conspired to increase his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements provided to banks and insurers to make deals and secure loans.

In September, Judge Arthur Engoron issued a partial summary stating that the defendants committed fraud. He ruled that Trump grossly inflated the value of his assets to obtain more favorable terms from lenders and insurers. The court will now decide on six other accusations, including falsifying business records, insurance fraud, and conspiracy claims.

During her testimony, prosecutors asked Ivanka Trump, who left The Trump Organization in 2017 to join her father's White House administration and was initially named as a co-defendant in the trial, about emails she exchanged with Trump Organization executives.

She said she couldn't remember them, so the Attorney General's office entered documents into evidence to remind her, including an email she sent to Allen Weisselberg and other Trump Organization executives dated December 15, 2011.

"It doesn't get better than this. lets (sic) discuss asap (sic)," Ivanka wrote in the email.

At this point, Habba objected to the email being entered as evidence, claiming that it was never sent, The Messenger's Adam Klasfeld reported. Prosecutor Kevin Wallace told Habba that the document she objected to was one of her team's own documents.

Engoron said that he would allow the questioning about the email to continue.

Newsweek reached out to a representative for Habba via email for comment on Thursday.

Habba was swiftly mocked online following the incident.

One person who identified themselves as a lawyer in their bio on X, formerly Twitter, wrote: "An attorney fresh out of passing the bar could do better."

Another X user named Susan Denson said: "Boy, I bet all the big law firms are tripping over themselves just to hire such a brilliant lawyer!"

"So Alina Habba as lawyer for the defence, objected to her own document being entered into evidence? This trial is the gift that keep giving," a third X user posted.

"Donni Dollhands' attorney, Alina Habba, objected to the Prosecution entering an exhibit from the Trump Organization that Alina Habba handed over to the Prosecution during the Discovery Phase," X user Sgt Joker said. "Classic incompetent [clown emoji]. Only the best people...yada, yada..."

Ivanka Trump was the last witness to testify in the trial. She was also questioned on her job as executive vice president for development and acquisitions at the Trump Organization and her role in negotiating the Trump Organization's loan from Deutsche Bank to purchase the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami, Florida, in 2011.

The conditions of the loan required that her father's net worth be at least $3 billion; James claims that the $4.2 billion declared by Donald Trump in his 2011 financial statement was far higher than the actual amount.

Meanwhile, Habba has been pushing for a mistrial, arguing that Engoron did not give Trump enough time to speak when he testified on Monday.

Speaking outside the New York courtroom, she accused Engoron of being "unhinged" after he clashed with the former president and his lawyers several times during Trump's testimony.>

<House Republican Greg Murphy was challenged on CNN after saying he would vote to hold Hunter and James Biden in contempt if they fail to turn up after being subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, despite voting against holding Steve Bannon in contempt when he failed to testify before the January 6 committee.

On Wednesday, James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, revealed he had signed subpoenas for Hunter and James, son and brother of President Joe Biden respectively. This forms part of an ongoing impeachment investigation into Biden, who Republicans allege traded political favors for financial payments to members of his family. The president has strongly denied any wrongdoing, and insists he "never talked business" with Hunter or his business partners. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an impeachment inquiry into Biden in September, which could potentially lead to a full impeachment trial similar to the two faced by Trump. Comer has claimed to have "mountains of evidence" against Biden, though Republicans faced mockery after it emerged the transfer of $200,000 from James to Joe Biden in 2018, which had been touted as a key piece of evidence, was in fact a loan repayment.

Murphy was asked whether he would vote to hold Hunter and James Biden in contempt, should they refuse to appear before the oversight committee, during a Thursday appearance on John Berman's CNN show. He replied: "Absolutely, absolutely, why would they not be? What do they have to hide?"

Berman then noted Murphy had voted against holding Bannon in contempt after he refused to testify before the January 6 committee in 2021, which led to the conviction of the former president's ex-chief White House strategist the following year.

Murphy responded: "It's a little bit of higher different standards John when you have somebody who's in elected office versus someone who's not in elected office."

The CNN host then asked "what office Hunter Biden is in?" prompting Murphy to comment: "I'm not talking about Hunter Biden, I'm talking about Joe Biden the president of the United States."

Appearing visibly exasperated Berman then said: "You haven't subpoenaed him...I'm asking if Hunter Biden or Jim Biden, the brother or son of the president who are not elected officials, if they're not responsive will you hold them in contempt?"

In response, Murphy again accused Biden of influence peddling, before suggesting the difference Hunter and James have with Bannon is the latter isn't related to the former president, whereas the former are to the incumbent.

The CNN anchor appeared unconvinced, stating: "He was a former employee of President Donald Trump and the other people who you did not vote to hold in contempt literally worked for the former president Donald Trump."

Newsweek has reached out to Murphy for comment by telephone.

Despite Comer's criticism of Biden for loaning his brother $200,000 in 2018, The Daily Beast has since claimed the Republican committee chair engaged in a similar practice, swapping land with his brother related to their family farming business with one loan for $200,000 involving a shell company. Newsweek contacted Comer by email for comment on the story.>

<Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to keep the classified document trial dates as they stand, despite Donald Trump's rescheduling request, could be an attempt to cause problems for the Georgia prosecutor who has charged the former president with trying to overturn the 2020 election, according to NYU law professor Andrew Weissmann.

While some legal analysts took to social media to indicate their suspicions that the Florida judge will likely allow Trump to have whatever he requests, Weissman wonders if this new ruling isn't targeted at Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

"This doesn't change my opinion of Cannon one iota," said Weissmann, a critic of Cannon's. "By allowing Trump to later move to delay the trial, but keeping the date for now, she is blocking Fani Willis from scheduling her trial on the current FLA date. And Cannon has substantially delayed the dates for all FLA filings."

Earlier this month, Chicago podcaster Tom Joseph posted that Cannon is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the dates for her trial.

"Corrupt Judge Cannon will delay Trump's May 20 classified documents trial to protect him, except he has a problem," he explained.

"If she delays the docs trial too much, it open [sic] a window for Fani Willis to bring her RICO trial of Trump. Trump needs Cannon to incrementally block Willis.">

<Jack Smith's new trial tactic of possibly putting Mar-a-Lago employees on the stand against former President Donald Trump could implode as witnesses sometimes "blow up" when testifying, according to legal analyst Norm Eisen.

Smith is a Department of Justice special counsel in charge of prosecuting Trump for both the classified documents case and the former president's Washington, D.C., indictment for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election. Trump has been accused of improperly removing dozens of classified documents from the White House before leaving office in 2021.

Trump, who is campaigning for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and is the current frontrunner, has maintained his innocence in the case.

CNN reported in March at least two dozen people, including Mar-a-Lago resort staff, had been subpoenaed to testify to a federal grand jury that is investigating Trump's handling of the classified documents. On Thursday, CNN reported that a plumber, a maid, a chauffeur and a woodworker are among the Mar-a-Lago staffers who may be called to testify against Trump.

Meanwhile, Eisen posted on X, formerly Twitter on Thursday, "Calling Trump's chauffeur, maid, & other MAL employees as witnesses is a smart move by Jack Smith. But they're not used to being on the stand—& the fmr president's lawyers won't pull any punches."

Eisen also posted a video from his conversation with CNN in the post, where he said, "The con to calling these witnesses is that they are what we sometimes refer to as civilians....These are not people who are accustomed to being on the stand."

"They are not accustomed to the limelight," Eisen continued. "They work for Donald Trump so there will be a certain amount of awkwardness...witnesses sometimes do blow up. They have to be carefully prepared by the prosecution."

Eisen then noted Trump's lawyers' behavior so far in the trial, saying, "Trump's lawyers, we saw this most recently how they went after Michael Cohen, how they went after E. Jean Carroll in that case, Trump's lawyers will be no holds barred."

Reacting to this analysis, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade told Newsweek on Friday, "The wisdom of calling any witness depends on preparation. If Jack Smith has already put these witnesses in the grand jury and locked in their testimony under oath, then he can confidently question them on the witness stand at trial."

McQuade concluded, "Putting them on the stand blind would violate the first rule of witness testimony—never ask a witness a question to which you do not know the answer."

Dave Aronberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, where Mar-a-Lago is located, also told Newsweek on Friday, "These witnesses can be quite powerful because they saw things as insiders and have no axe to grind, no political bias and no financial reason to make up stuff about the boss. In fact, quite the opposite."

Trump responded to CNN's report on Friday on his social media platform Truth Social saying, "Fake News CNN just did a story, leaked by Deranged Prosecutor Jack Smith and his massive team of Radical Left Lunatics, that various people saw papers and boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Of course they did! They may have been the boxes etc. that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act."

Trump continued: "I even supplied, upon request, Security Tapes to these Election Interfering Thugs. Is this really 'Breaking News?' No, it's 'Breaking Fake News.' But what about all of the papers, boxes, and documents found at NUMEROUS Crooked Joe Biden places, like his garage floor by his cherished Corvette, or CHINATOWN where it was just learned that boxes moved freely in and out. He doesn't come under the Presidential Records Act because he wasn't President at the time. Deranged Jack Smith has spent over $100,000,000 investigating me on this phony Russia, Russia, Russia, type Scam. How much $'s have they spent investigating Crooked Joe on his much bigger boxes deal?"

Meanwhile, Trump has had a turbulent week amid his ongoing $250 million civil fraud trial in New York City.

On Monday, the former president took the stand to defend himself, where he denied allegations that he inflated the value of his properties and assets in order to obtain favorable bank loans and tax breaks.

Ivanka Trump was also called to testify in the civil trial on Wednesday, with New York Attorney General Letitia James' office alleging she played a part in filing the financial statements while working as executive vice president at The Trump Organization.

James also alleges that Ivanka Trump used the statements to obtain three loans for the company from Deutsche Bank in 2012 and 2013. Ivanka was dismissed from the case in June due to the statute of limitations for most of the allegations against her.

<First came the classroom culture wars.

Now, the backlash.

Conservative activists pushing for parents to have more of a say in what their children are taught in school suffered a series of high-profile losses in Tuesday’s election, dealing a major blow to a movement that has advocated for book bans and restrictions on classroom discussion about issues of gender and race.

Voters in multiple states rejected local school board candidates backed by groups such as Moms for Liberty, choosing moderate or liberal candidates instead.

Just over a third of the candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won their races on Tuesday. The Florida-based nonprofit, which has been at the center of many of the battlers over school curricula, said 50 of the 139 school board candidates it endorsed were elected. The group’s track record for the entire year is only slightly better. Overall, the group said 44% of the candidates it has backed this year won their races.

Tiffany Justice, one of the Moms for Liberty founders, said she feels good about the election results even though the candidates backed by the group lost far more races than they won.

Pointing to the candidates who did win, Justice said, “That means you have 50 liberty-minded individuals that are going to go serve on school boards, that are going to put the focus back on the basics in school, and they’re going to make sure that parental rights are respected.”

Another group, the 1776 Project, said 58% of the candidates it endorsed – many of them in conservative areas – won. “Considering the national environment, we view that as a strong result,” said Ryan Girdusky, the group’s founder.

Since the runup to last year's midterm elections, the GOP has sought to strengthen its grip on local elections by targeting school board races across the country. New right-leaning political action committees began pouring money into school board races in the last cycle – a trend that continued into 2023 and is expected in 2024 – aiming to not only flip control of who governs schools but change education on a national scale.

But teachers’ unions, education activists and others portrayed the less-than-stellar showing by Moms for Liberty and other like-minded groups on Tuesday as a repudiation of their far-right agenda.

“These results underline what families have been telling us for the last two years: They don’t want culture wars. They want safe and welcoming public schools where their kids can recover and thrive,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Jon Valant, an expert on education policy, predicted the outcome of this year’s races could influence future elections as well.

“It’s going to cause school board candidates down the road to seriously question whether affiliating themselves with some of these far-right groups is good for their chances of getting elected,” said Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

“I think a lot of them are going to come to the conclusion that it is not and that there’s too much risk that comes with associating with these groups,” Valant said.

School fight: Culture wars have taken hold of school board elections. Students say their well-being is at risk.

Have voters had enough of the culture wars?

Local school boards in Ohio have become a battleground for the culture wars raging in schools. But voters signaled on Tuesday they’ve had enough.

In Stark County, which is in eastern Ohio, just one of nine candidates backed by Moms for Liberty was elected. The single successful candidate was an incumbent.

In the Cincinnati area, two of eight candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty won. Two others backed by a group called Ohio Value Voters also were elected. Ohio Value Voters controls a coalition that collects evidence from mostly anonymous tipsters that Ohio schools are indoctrinating children on critical race theory, comprehensive sex education and social and emotional learning.

In the Columbus area, several conservatives ran on culture war promises, including keeping transgender girls off girls’ sports teams, protecting parents’ rights, limiting diversity and inclusion efforts and curtailing sex education. Eight out of 10 of them lost.

Most of the candidates who campaigned on hot-button issues lost because “by and large voters aren’t looking for extremist candidates,” said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association.....>

<.....Iowa voters delivered a near clean sweep for progressive school board candidates in the suburbs of Des Moines and in other high-profile races around the state. Advocacy groups across the political spectrum and local elected officials from both parties weighed in this year on Des Moines' suburban school board elections, which are nonpartisan but have taken a heated political turn in recent years.

Only one of the Iowa candidates formally endorsed by Moms for Liberty won a school board seat. Voters also rejected a slate of four candidates endorsed by The Family Leader, an influential Christian conservative group led by Bob Vander Plaats. Nearly all candidates promoted by local Republican elected officials also came up short in the Des Moines suburbs.

Jenn Turner, chair of the Moms For Liberty Polk County Chapter, said recent Iowa laws impacting education made parents more comfortable with what is happening inside schools. Some of them stayed on this [sic] sidelines this election, she said.

"Students use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their biological sex. Boys cannot play in girls sports," Turner said. “And sexually explicit books were removed from classrooms and school libraries across the state, and gender identity cannot be taught in K-6 classrooms."

"Our opponents did a good job in misinformation campaigns, telling the public that ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and other classics were being removed, when in fact, only books that had graphic depictions of sex acts or books suggesting porn sites were removed," she said.

Elsewhere, Democrats won five seats and seized control of the school board from Republicans in the Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania by defeating candidates recommended by Moms for Liberty.

In Loudoun County, Virginia, which has faced the ire of conservative activists over its policies on transgender students, critical race theory and other issues, Democratic-endorsed candidates won or were leading in six of the nine school board races. Three of the four candidates backed by Moms for Liberty were defeated.

Turning back the clock: Will fights over curriculum usher in new era of segregated schools?

School boards and the emergence of dark money groups

David Niven, a University of Cincinnati political scientist, said Tuesday’s elections mark the end of “the stealth school board candidate.”

The emergence of “dark money” groups, which don’t disclose their donors, and the involvement of political action committees and advocacy groups helping culture warriors win in school board races has changed how the races are run, Niven said.

“What we’ve seen in the past in Ohio is folks with pretty far-out-there views could run without that much scrutiny and, sort of a victim of their own success, they have these formal and organized efforts and adjacent efforts helping to know just who is who,” he said.

Before, “it was a lot easier to present yourself as a concerned parent or concerned taxpayer or civic minded and not ever be confronted with ‘Do you want to ban books?’ Or, ‘You want to alter the curriculum or inject police into the schools?’” Niven said. “And now the effort is so much more brazen that it’s kind of a double-edged sword. They’re working harder to do this, but they’re almost at cross purposes with themselves.”

Justice, of Moms for Liberty, said her group is looking to expand its influence by getting involved in state Board of Education elections. Eighty-three percent of the candidates the group backed in November’s elections were first-time candidates, she said. With 50 winning, that means the group has helped 365 people get elected over the past two years.

“The bottom line is this: We are helping a whole new group of people get involved in the civic process and to come and try to reclaim or reform public education,” she said. “Teachers unions have had a lock on school board elections for years. We’re the new kid on the block.”

Valant, however, said the election results could be a sign that voters are losing the appetite for turning school issues into extreme partisan battles.

“These cultural war battles have been a real distraction for last couple of years and, I think, have caused some real harm in schools,” he said. “My hope is that a definite consequence of this is that we’re going to see school board members thinking harder about the trade-offs that come from affiliating with some of these groups.”

Valant said he also hopes the election signals the country is on track to “turning down the temperature a bit” on the culture wars.>

<Republican Representative Thomas Massie warned House Speaker Mike Johnson that he's running out of time to prevent a federal government shutdown while he's still in good graces with House GOP members.

The deadline for a shutdown is November 17, and Johnson has yet to announce his plan to prevent one. Johnson, of Louisiana, was elected speaker on October 25, three weeks after Representative Kevin McCarthy of California was ousted from the speakership. McCarthy's exit was spurred by far-right House Republicans opposing his decision to vote with Democrats on a "continuing resolution" (CR) that extended government funding 45 days beyond the previous September 30 shutdown deadline.

Mike Johnson's Already Making MAGA Mad

During a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson emphasized that he does not want a government stoppage, but did not offer any details about prevention efforts.

"I'm not going to tell you when we will bring it to the floor, but it will be in time, how about that? Trust us: We're working through the process in a way that I think that people will be proud of," Johnson said. "[We had] very deliberate, positive discussions about the many options that are on the table, and we'll be revealing what our plan is in short order."

Newsweek reached out to Johnson via email for comment Thursday.

Massie, of Kentucky, told reporters on Thursday that Johnson will need to make a decision soon and suggested a CR that expires in September 2024.

"I think there's a honeymoon period here. I'm not sure how long it lasts, maybe 30 days, with what's going on the floor today that indicates the honeymoon might be shorter than we thought," Massie said.

"Every time the CR expires, the speaker is putting his head in the lion's mouth," the GOP congressman added. "If I were advising the speaker, I would say do a one-year CR before the honeymoon period runs out—buy you enough runway to get you to September 30, 2024."

Newsweek reached out to Massie via email for comment Thursday.

Johnson has considered a "laddered CR," in which Congress would introduce staggered deadlines, prioritizing the funding of agencies with more expedient deadlines, instead of extending the 12 federal funding bills all at once with the same deadline.

This approach has seen support from far-right GOP members, but also backlash from Democrats and some Republicans who found it confusing and impractical.

Senator Susan Collins, Maine Republican and vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, said she prefers moving full funding bills into packages of three at a time, called "minibuses."

"I would prefer that we continue with the original plan, which was to have four minibuses," she said.

Johnson has received criticism from the MAGA sector for supporting Israel's war against Palestinian militants Hamas while there's trouble at home. Johnson pushed a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel, which was passed by the House on November 2.

Rumble personality Ryan Matta said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on October 30: "MIKE JOHNSON PUTS ISRAEL 1ST KNOWING THERE ARE 4 MILLION ILLEGAL RIDING TRAIN CARAVANS THROUGH MEXICO."

"Politicians are incapable of putting America First!" Trump supporter Cynthia Holt posted online about Johnson.>

<On Friday morning, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-FL) attempted to intercede on Donald Trump's behalf by filing an ethics complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron who is overseeing a $250 million financial fraud trial against the Trump Organization and its officers.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, the New York Republican announced, "I just filed an official judicial complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron for his inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance in New York’s disgraceful lawsuit against President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization."

She then added, "Americans are sick and tired of the blatant corruption by radical Leftist judges in NY. All New Yorkers must speak out against the dangerous weaponized lawfare against President Trump," with the entire letter to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, added to her post.

Appearing on CNN. with host Kate Bolduan to discuss the reporting that Mar-a-Lago employees are speaking with special counsel Jack Smith about stolen documents they witnessed, former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff was asked about the complaint and predicted it will be promptly dismissed upon receipt.

"So if the complaint has merit the commission can launch an investigation and look into it," the former prosecutor began. "You know, this complaint i think Stefanik should have done a little bit more legal research because there is a lot in there that's just so sort of legally wrong.

"She discusses the summary judgment opinion issued by the court and seems to sort of discredit that opinion," she added. "I mean, that is sort of a normal process in every civil case in this country; that there's an opportunity to seek some rejudgment, which is what both parties did here. So I think she has some legal infirmities in her complaint here that they [sic] are going to make the commission rather dismissive of it.">

Maybe this stooge should have a care for her constituents, rather than grandstanding for higher office.

<A decade-long push to open up the Constitution to wholesale revisions has been slowly gaining traction, but the recent election of Mike Johnson as House speaker could quickly tip the nation into a constitutional crisis, reports Politico.

The Louisiana Republican has never endorsed the never-used Article V convention as a member of Congress, but he played a key role in getting his state to become the eighth to call for one, and the cadre of conservatives who make up the "Convention of the States" movement were overjoyed when he got elected speaker, reported Politico.

"This is literally the kind of guy that we’ve been praying for to be in that position,” Tim Barton, head of the Wallbuilders organization that promotes the view that the founders were evangelical Christian conservatives, told Politico. “We’ve known this guy for years. He’s been a friend for years.”

Johnson vocally supported a petition in 2016, when he was a state legislator, asking Congress to convene an Article V convention, telling his colleagues that it was "measure of last resort" to rein in a government that was "doing way more than the founders intended."

“I came to this conclusion myself reluctantly, but I’m there,” Johnson said at the time. “I think we have to do it.”

Johnson also worked behind the scenes to persuade reluctant legislators, and while he hasn't spoken about it publicly since goign [sic] to Washington, he convened a hearing last month of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government to discuss topic.

There are two paths to amending the Constitution, and only one has been used in the nation's history.

On that path, two-thirds of Congress must approve the potential amendment, and then three-fourths of the states must agree before it's added into the Constitution.

Article V, on the other hand, calls for a constitutional convention where multiple amendments can be debated if two-thirds of states petition Congress, but there's no limit on what changes could be made or how the convention would ratify them, but three-fourths of states would still have to approve for those changes to become law.

So far, 19 states have submitted COSA petitions, more than halfway to the 34 states necessary to open one, but Johnson's office downplayed his interest in the topic.

“Subcommittee hearings about a given subject should not be considered endorsements from the Chairman,” said Corinne Day, a spokesperson for Johnson.

The COSA movement exploits some ambiguity in Article V to insist that state legislatures, which tend to skew far more conservative than the public, would select delegates, and each state would get only one – giving Wyoming as much voting power as California

“The worst-case scenario is that [an Article V convention] puts all of our cherished constitutional rights and civil rights completely up for grabs,” said Stephen Spaulding, vice president of Common Cause, when he testified at Johnson’s subcommittee hearing last month.

The mainstream legal consensus holds that an Article V convention could essentially repeal the founding document to completely restructure the U.S. government and the Bill of Rights, and civil rights watchdogs have been warning that's exactly what the COSA movement has been preparing to do.

“It is alarming to have a speaker of the House who supports the extremist Convention of States movement, which is striving to radically rewrite the U.S. Constitution,” said Russ Feingold, legal professor, former Wisconsin senator and current president of the American Constitution Society. “Any move by Congress in this direction risks catapulting this country into a constitutional crisis.”>

<Federal prosecutors have submitted a top secret court motion in an attempt to stop Donald Trump introducing classified documents into his election tampering trial.

Trump's lawyers want to use the classified documents in court to show that Trump was trying to save the 2020 election from foreign interference, in contrast with prosecution claims that he was trying to illegally interfere in the election.

Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and his team fear that the introduction of classified documents will delay the Washington D.C trial, as it has already delayed Trump's other federal trial in Florida.

One of Smith's team, Thomas P. Windom, notified Washington D.C.-based judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday that prosecutors have submitted their motion to a Classified Information Security Officer, who then stores it until the judge is ready to review it.

Under federal rules, all motions that reference classified documents have to be submitted to a Classified Information Security Officer to ensure their secrecy.

The prosecution court filing, the details of which are not viewable by the general public, is entitled "Government's Motion to Strike Defendant's CIPA Section 5 Notice".

Under Section 5 of the Classified Information Procedures Act, a defendant who "reasonably intends to disclose classified information" must "provide timely pretrial written notice of his intention to the Court and the Government."

Section 5(a) requires that such notice "include a brief description of the classified information" and must be "particularized and specific", according to a Justice Department synopsis of the CIPA.

On October 26, Trump's lawyers submitted notice to Chutkan that Trump wishes to obtain "classified information at trial relating to foreign influence activities that impacted the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as efforts by his administration to combat those activities."

"President Trump will also present classified information relating to the biased and politicized nature of the intelligence assessments that he and others rejected during the events in question," their submission reads....>

<.....It also states that his legal team has already alerted the Classified Information Security Officer to inform them that Trump will need classified documents at trial.

His legal team's submission states that, between the classified information on foreign interference and the classified information on biased intelligence reports, "this evidence will undercut central theories of the prosecution and establish that President Trump acted at all times in good faith and on the belief that he was doing what he had been elected to do."

The submission noted that prosecutor Jack Smith had argued in legal submissions earlier in October that "the classified discovery issues" in this case are "limited," "tangential," "narrow," and "incidental" because "the charges...do not rely on classified materials."

"The Indictment in this case adopts classified assessments by the Intelligence Community and others that minimized, and at times ignored, efforts by foreign actors to influence and interfere with the 2020 election," Trump's lawyers wrote.

The former president was indicted on four counts in August for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

The submissions by Trump's attorneys John F. Lauro and Todd Blanche came on the same day that Smith's team was complaining, in a separate federal case, that Trump's legal team took 11 days to begin reviewing classified material allegedly found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Trump has pleaded not guilty before a Florida federal court to hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

In that Florida submission, Smith's team complained that Trump's lawyers are accusing prosecutors of not producing the classified documents fast enough while delaying their inspection of those same documents at a specially fitted secure room in Miami.

"Despite defendant Trump's accusations, defense counsel was hardly in a rush to review the Government's latest production of classified discovery," he wrote in a document submitted to federal judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday.

Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race. Several legal commentators claim he is trying to delay his criminal trials so that he can exonerate himself if elected president again.

Preet Bharara, a former federal prosecutor, said that Trump likely has three options to avoid his two federal trials if elected next year: pardoning himself, appointing a favorable attorney general, or claiming federal immunity.

Speaking on his Spotify podcast Stay Tuned With Preet earlier this month, Bharara claimed that Trump is trying to delay his trials until after the presidential election and, if elected, try to escape the charges.>

<On Wednesday, nearly half of the House Republican conference endorsed a proposal to slash Vice President Kamala Harris’ salary. A day later, when they were supposed to be working on preventing a government shutdown, an even larger number of GOP members went after a different White House official’s income.

The Hill reported:

In reality, of course, President Joe Biden’s chief spokesperson is neither a “liar” nor “antisemitic,” and as (Claudia) Tenney probably realized, her measure stood no realistic chance of success.

But the vote struck me as notable for a couple of reasons. The first was the number of House Republicans who actually voted for this: 165 GOP members, including Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of the party’s leadership team, thought it’d be a good idea to vote for a measure that would’ve effectively forced the White House press secretary to work for free.

There are currently 221 House Republicans, which means 76% [sic] of the conference — roughly three out of four GOP members — went along with this absurd stunt.

We can all think of foolish proposals fringe figures on Capitol Hill unveil for unfortunate reasons. They don't generally receive support from 165 members.

The other angle of interest is the frequency with which these stunts happen. Circling back to our earlier coverage, House Republicans, taking advantage of the so-called “Holman Rule,” have gone after Kamala Harris’ salary. And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s salary. And Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s salary.

The GOP majority has also targeted Pete Buttigieg’s salary. And Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s salary. And EPA Administrator Michael Regan’s salary. And Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning’s salary. And Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler’s salary.

Jean-Pierre can take comfort in the fact that she’s in good company.

Were any of these measures likely to become law? No. Were Republicans who voted for the measures aware of this? Yes.

But a striking number of GOP lawmakers apparently find the bills entertaining, which means the public should expect to see quite a few more votes like these — at least until there’s a Democratic majority in the chamber again.

Congressional Republicans have earned a reputation for unseriousness. Some are going out of their way to prove their critics right.>