<Representative James Comer (KY) claimed his fellow House Republicans have enough votes to advance their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden because — as he put it — the Walmart shoppers have spoken.

The House Oversight Committee chairman joined Maria Bartiromo for Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, where they spoke about when and if Republicans would secure the votes needed to launch the inquiry. Comer was confident they have enough moderates on board to move forward now since… well, here’s how he explained it:

I had a reporter ask ‘Well, what’s changed,’ you know, because the press has been riding ‘We didn’t have the votes forever.’

I’ll tell you one thing that’s changed. We were in Washington, D.C. for 10 weeks, and there are about 10-15 moderates. They really worry about what CNN says, or what The Washington Post writes, and they were getting in their head, Maria.

But then, a great thing happened during Thanksgiving: the members went home. Many of ’em for the first time in over 10 weeks, and they met people in Walmart, and people on Main Street, and they’re like ‘What in the world have the Bidens done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and did they not pay taxes on it?’

So they heard from their constituents. Yes. We want you the move forward. We want the know the truth, and we expect the Bidens to be held accountable for public corruption. So we are unified at a time when I think it’s no secret our conference is broken in a lot of ways. The members have heard from their constituents back home. They have confidence in the credibility of our investigation, and the mountains of evidence we’ve accumulated. So I’m confident we’re gonna have the votes to move forward with this impeachment inquiry.

As the Congressional GOP carries on their efforts against the Biden family, Bartiromo noted that getting a majority will be more difficult since disgraced former Congressman George Santos (R-NY) was ousted last week. The Biden administration has been largely dismissive of the House’s probe, and White House Spokesman Ian Sams was highly entertained by Comer claiming the inquiry will go through because the Walmart shoppers demand it.>

<Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Sunday refused to condemn Donald Trump for using the term "vermin" to describe his political opponents.

"Mr. Trump is campaigning on the idea of retribution," NBC host Kristen Welker told DeSantis in an interview. "He's promising to jail his political enemies if he's reelected."

"He's also referred to some of his political opponents as vermin, language that people, frankly, across the political spectrum, say harkens back to Nazi Germany," she continued. "Do you think that kind of language is presidential?"

"Well, I think even beyond that, the issue is, is why are you running?" DeSantis dodged. "Are you running for your personal issues? Are you running for the American people's issues?" Welker pressed: "But let me ask you about my original question, the use of the word vermin. Are you comfortable with that term? But are you comfortable with that term, Governor?"

"Let me just say on the DOJ, well, first of all, I'm responsible for what I say, and I say things differently," DeSantis replied.

"Are you comfortable with that term?" the host asked again. "Let's just on my question though, Governor."

"Excuse me!" DeSantis exclaimed. "What I'm not comfortable with is FBI agents going after parents going to school board meetings. I'm not comfortable with DOJ, FBI working with tech companies to censor dissent."

Welker asked the candidate to condemn the use of the word "vermin." But he refused.

"I don't use the term, but what I don't do is play the media's game where I'm asked to referee other people," DeSantis opined. "He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.">

<Right-wing podcast host Steve Bannon called for a purging of people who are not Christian nationalists if Donald Trump wins a second term as president.

On his Monday War Room broadcast, Bannon celebrated author Tim Alberta's warnings about Christian nationalism on MSNBC.

"When you begin to think of America as almost this covenant nation, that God has ordained us, God has blessed us, and you are fighting for God by fighting for America, that is Christian nationalism, and that is what has infected much of the church today," Alberta told the hosts of Morning Joe.

"Sign me up," Bannon reacted. "I mean, I think this is the best recruiting pitch I've heard."

Bannon's guest, My Pillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell, called Alberta's MSNBC appearance "amazing."

"A nation had turned its back on God, and God's given us grace right now for such a time as this for the greatest revival in history," Lindell said.

Bannon compared Trump to Roman dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

"Trump's the American Cincinnatus has come back to fight all this," he remarked. "This is why they're trying to throw him in prison."

The War Room host vowed to play the clip of Alberta all day.

"He's saying the problem in the church — think about that — the problem we have in the church is people love the country too much. No, dude, that's not the problem," Bannon insisted. "That's the sick, twisted people that [sic] watch MSNBC that must be defeated so they no longer can infest the government of this country."

"They all have to be purged," he added. "Purged. Right. Anybody who would think that was bad has to be purged.">

<The College Football Committee made the shocking decision on Sunday to place the Alabama Crimson Tide in the playoffs over the undefeated Florida State Seminoles.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently trailing frontrunner Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, took to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to voice his outrage at the selection.

“What we learned today is that you can go undefeated and win your conference championship game, but the College Football Playoff committee will ignore these results,” DeSantis wrote on X. “Congratulations to @FSUFootball on an outstanding season and winning the ACC championship!”

DeSantis was far from alone, too.

“1. @FSUFootball is undefeated. 2. FSU won the conference championship with a 3rd string QB. 3. Texas was never ranked ahead of FSU all year. 4. FSU didn’t need a hail mary to survive rivalry week like Alabama did. Plus, we won with the 2nd string QB!” wrote Republican Congressman Byron Donalds.

“Like millions of college football fans, I was infuriated by the illogical decision to rob @FSUFootball of the chance to play in the @CFBPlayoff. I’ll be demanding the committee answer as to how this decision was made and what led to this outcome,” wrote Republican Senator Rick Scott.

Republicans weren’t the only party furious about the selection, either.

“I am circulating a letter and will be doing a resolution condemning @NCAAFootball @NCAA decision to leave @FSUFootball out of the playoffs. This decision is about TV money, a corrupt decision for college athletics,” wrote Democrat Jared Moskowitz.

There is no word yet on whether state Republicans will pursue legal action against the College Football Playoff.>

<Newt Gingrich might have inadvertently told the truth about why Republican congressional moderates might now support the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden when they didn’t before.

The former House speaker-turned-Fox News contributor joined Fox & Friends on Monday to talk about the Congressional GOP’s latest push to get the Biden inquiry off the ground. Asked for his reaction to Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) confidence in securing the necessary votes, Gingrich accused Democrats of “defending Joe Biden’s right to be a crook.”

That’s when Gingrich followed up with this:

If you’re a Republican, do you really want to guarantee a primary opponent by voting against looking into [Biden]? This doesn’t impeach him. This simply gives Congress additional power to force the White House to reveal document and force people to come testify.

Extrapolating from Gingrich’s words to put them into greater context, he seemed to be saying that if House Republicans don’t back the inquiry, then their careers will end when their unforgiving constituents vote them out in their next primary election. While there remains a lack of direct evidence pointing to Biden’s criminal wrongdoing, Gingrich continued to pronounce the Biden family “corrupt” over what the GOP alleges is a foreign influence peddling scheme.>

<Moms For Liberty is at the center of a whirlwind of controversy as an online flyer for 'Operation White Christmas,' reportedly shared on the group's telegram channel, recently went viral online. For the uninitiated, 'Operation White Christmas,' organized by the National Justice Party (NJP) is an annual "online toy drive for White families in need".

The flyer shared by Moms For Liberty went viral, triggering a barrage of backlash as people condemned the group's association with NJP, an organization reportedly known for propagating white supremacy and neo-nazism. In light of the connection, netizens rallied against Moms For Liberty for being nothing short of a "hate group."

'Operation White Christmas' flyer shared by Moms For Liberty claims to provide for "White families in need"

On December 1, 2023, popular TikToker and rural teacher, Jess Piper shared a TikTok of a screenshot she received from her friend, Laura Burkhart. It showed a November 26 post from a Telegram channel named, Moms For Liberty Uncensored, the official Telegram channel of the now under-fire organization. The post was of a flyer of an event organized by the National Justice Party.

The flyer shared the details about the National Justice Party's 4th annual 'Operation White Christmas,' an online toy drive for "White families in need." The flyer read as follows:

"In the interest of racial justice and pro-White advocacy, we want to ensure that White families in need are not turned away, as they frequently are by other charitable efforts."

The flyer asked people to reach out to the party in case they were a white family in need or they knew a white family in need. It also stated that the organizers would be using "anonymous methods" to deliver toys, clothes, and other items to those white people in need of them. The link provided in the flyer was blurred out.

Jess Piper captioned her post, "M4L is a hate group" and stated that despite doing many charity and toy drives, she had never seen one with a "race requirement." She condemned the group for offering nothing but "outrage" and constantly "playing the victim". As a white person herself, Piper stated that she had never been oppressed or judged by the color of her skin.

Piper's TikTok went viral, amassing over 79,400 views on the platform. On X (formerly known as Twitter), the video was shared by many famous handles like @Papi_B_Dubs, @TizzyEnt, and @ChangeTheSyst14. All of these re-posts crossed 100,000 views on the platform.

Netizens rip apart Moms for Liberty

Netizens were up in arms about the controversial flyer shared by M4L. People condemned the group for propagating "White nationalism". Many stated that charitable organizations never had a race requirement. People who have worked for charities also stepped up to counter the controversial organization's claims that white people were being turned away from charity drives.

Moms for Liberty had last come under fire when it was revealed by the Philadelphia Inquirer in November that the leader of the Philadelphia chapter of the organization, Phillip Fisher Jr, a Center for Universal Divinity pastor, was registered as a s*x offender.>

A precis of today's action follows:

<The mean spirited cyberbully <perfidious> is complaining about other posters mentioning a name??? ??? ??? ??? perfidious says the nastiest things, gets away with practically all of it, a man full of hatred and anger and filth. But now bad ass <perfidious is here crying like his troll pal>?? ?? ??

C'mon perfidious!! Suck it up buttercup. You're way out of character. You can't be a crybaby and a cyberbully!>

<Days after his quest for a stay failed, Donald Trump wants New York’s top court to review his lawsuit against Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron over gag orders the civil fraud trial judge issued against the former president and his lawyers.

Though the civil fraud trial is unfolding in Manhattan Supreme Court, which readers may confuse as the Empire State’s highest court, the actual top court in the state is the New York Court of Appeals.

Trump wants the high court to hear his Article 78 lawsuit against Engoron before his civil fraud case ends, the former president’s Monday filing in Supreme Court of New York, First Appellate Department revealed.

How we got here

Engoron issued a gag order in October barring Trump from verbally attacking the judge’s court staff after the former president posted untruthfully on Truth Social by calling the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer’s “girlfriend” and accusing her of “running the case against [him],” a shorthand way of alleging improper and politically motivated “co-judging.”

In November, Engoron prohibited Trump attorneys Christopher Kise, Clifford Robert, and Alina Habba from “making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between [the judge’s] staff and [the judge].”

Engoron explained that the lawyers “made, on the record, repeated, inappropriate remarks about my Principal Law Clerk, falsely accusing her of bias against them and of improperly influencing the ongoing bench trial.”

“Defendants’ attorneys have made long speeches alleging that it is improper for a judge to consult with a law clerk during ongoing proceedings, and that the passing of notes from a judge to a law clerk, or vice-versa, constitutes an improper ‘appearance of impropriety’ in this case,” the judge wrote. “These arguments have no basis.”

Trump’s response

Trump reacted to the gag orders by filing a lawsuit under Article 78 against Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), accusing the judge of committing “brazen” violations of both the U.S. Constitution and New York’s Constitution by abusing his authority to silence protected speech critical of the proceedings, shielding the “Principal Law Clerk’s ‘co-judging’ and partisan political activity from public scrutiny.”

Calling the gags “unconstitutional,” Trump initially sought an interim stay of the orders.

Associate Justice David Friedman of the Appellate Division, First Department, on Nov. 16, did issue a temporary stay of the gag orders, citing the “constitutional and statutory rights at issue.” But after reading the filings from Trump, the state, and an attorney weighing in on Engoron’s behalf, a panel of appellate justices lifted the temporary stay. Trump lawyers had asked for the gag orders to remain on ice pending the “resolution of their Verified Joint Article 78 Petition.”

After learning of the ruling, Engoron said, “I intend to enforce the gag orders rigorously and vigorously, and I want to make sure counsel inform their clients.”....>

<.....Trump lawyer Christopher Kise, for his part, responded by saying it was “hard to believe this is happening in America.”

“In a country where the First Amendment is sacrosanct, President Trump may not even comment on why he thinks he cannot get a fair trial,” the attorney said.

A New York (Court of Appeals) state of mind

In documents filed Monday, Trump asked for “expedited leave” to take the case to the New York Court of Appeals and for an “expedited resolution” of the Article 78 case.

“Petitioners respectfully request that this Court grant immediate leave to appeal from the November 30, 2023, order to the Court of Appeals,” wrote Trump lawyer Clifford Robert in an “Affirmation of Urgency.” “Expedited review by the Court of Appeals is vital to Petitioners’ rights and interests and necessary to redress Justice Engoron’s ongoing violations of the United States Constitution, the New York State Constitution, the Judiciary Law, and the Rules of this Court. ”

“As set forth more fully in Petitioners’ memorandum of law, the Gag Orders, which restrict both Petitioners’ and their counsel’s speech, impermissibly abrogate Petitioners’ First Amendment right to highlight serious concerns raised by the public and partisan activities of Justice Engoron’s Principal Law Clerk during an ongoing bench trial,” the filing continued. “The Supplemental Gag Order also prohibits Petitioners’ counsel from creating an appellate record of Justice Engoron and his Principal Law Clerk’s conduct on the bench each day of trial.”

The Trump team said the gagged lawyers and their client “will continue to suffer irreparable injury daily” if they remain “silenced on matters implicating the appearance of bias and impropriety on the bench during a trial of immense stakes” — and an “immediate review” by the top court is necessary to correct the “error” in time.

Leave for expedited review to the top court is warranted, Clifford Robert argued, because if that leave isn’t granted right away, the civil fraud trial and challenged gag orders likely will have ended and expired, respectively, before the issues can be redressed.

“This risks permitting a grave Constitutional deprivation to remain law of this State,” the filing said, asking that the appellate division grant expedited review as soon as Dec. 6.>

<Former President Donald Trump's lawyers made a pretty big mistake in court again.

Last week, Trump lost multiple cases in which he was trying to claim presidential immunity from prosecution or civil suit. That was compounded on Monday as a series of blunders by his attorneys led to a denial of his ability to appeal the gag order in his civil fraud case in New York — which was only just reinstated after a brief suspension — ahead of the next hearing.

Legal expert Lisa Rubin walked through just what a disaster the day of legal argument was for the former president in a lengthy thread on X — complete with an analogy to the beloved 1995 teen comedy film "Clueless."

"A reflection on a weird afternoon in a New York appeals court: Does anyone remember how, in Clueless, Alicia Silverstone’s character fails her driver’s license test miserably but asks whether there is someone above him with whom she can speak?" wrote Rubin. "The examiner’s response is, 'Girlie, as far as you are concerned, I am the messiah of the DMV.' I was reminded of that scene watching Team Trump in the clerk’s office today."

"Even with Trump’s testimony planned for 12/11, they did not appeal the 11/30 order until today, and even then, they did not get the procedure right, asking a single judge to essentially overrule a four-judge panel," wrote Rubin. "And when told repeatedly there was nothing they could do to expedite either of their two imagined avenues for relief before 12/11, they were visibly frustrated a la Clueless. Surely, you are not the last word on this, they seemed to suggest to the court attorney."

Ultimately, Trump's application was denied by Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels — the same judge who oversaw the appeals panel that reinstated the gag order in the first place.

"But the thrust of what the court attorney told the parties from the counter of the clerk’s office remained true: Without the consent of the AG’s office and given their own delay, there was no getting a hearing earlier than next Monday. As Cher might say, 'Oops. Their bad,'" wrote Rubin, providing a clip of the "Clueless" scene the whole experience reminded her of.>

<stalker>, any idea of the definition of 'nescient'?

<Most of the college football community watched the playoff field unveiling last night with various degrees of shock and awe.

While Georgia dropping from the top spot to #6 after losing in the SEC title game to Alabama was largely glossed over, Florida State's argument as an undefeated Power Five conference champion being left out in favor of Big 12 champ Texas and SEC champion Alabama has dominated conversations.

Almost immediately, there was talk of civil or legislative action by government officials, because, well, that's just the era we live in.

Today, we got our first view of that, as a three-page letter from Senator Rick Scott from Florida addressed to Selection Committee Chairman Boo Corrigan (cc'ing the rest of the members of committee) was shared on social media.

In Scott's letter, which he tries to effectively lay out both the heartbreak and billions of dollars in economic impact of the decision that was made, he also makes a list of 10 requests to be immediately responded to.

Among those was this:

"Any emails, text messages or other written communication exchanged between members of the Selection Committee and individuals affiliated with ESPN regarding the CFP rankings relased [sic] on Sunday, December 3, 2023."

Is Scott trying to imply collusion between ESPN and the selection committee to get the SEC in over the ACC?

There are certainly no shortage of those kinds of theories floating around social media in the 24 hours since the announcement.

The letter wraps up strong with "Given the unprecedented nature of your recent decision, an unprecedented commitment to transparency is required."

I can't help but wonder why that sounds a whole lot like Big Ten coaches urging Michigan to face unprecedented discipline for unprecedented cheating almost exactly a month ago.>

<A company that won a multi-million dollar contract for work in a troubled Atlanta jail has several legislators listed as having ownership stakes, according to a report.

The contract with between technology company Talitrix and the Fulton County Sheriff's office was to provide health monitoring wristbands to inmates at the Rice Street jail. It was revoked over concerns about its ownership, and over the fact that only 15 wristbands were actually in use six months after the contract was awarded, The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

But the newspaper reported that company had won a series of no-bid contracts with the sheriff's office, and that some of the state legislators with ownership stakes had donated money to Patrick Labat's campaign for sheriff.

Rep. Todd Jones (R) owns more than 5 percent of Talitrix. Rep. Matt Dubnik (R) is an investor in three factions of the company, and Sen. Greg Dolezal (R) also owns more that 5 percent of the company, the AJC reported.

On Oct 18, county commissioners rescinded the $2.1 million deal they previously approved for Labat and Talitrix, saying they were troubled by Labat's failure to disclose that he already had a months-old deal with the company and that state legislators own part of the company. They also expressed concern that only 15 of the promised 1,000 health-monitoring wristbands were in use.

Government watchdogs say that, although Labat's deal wasn't illegal, it raises serious ethical questions.

Georgia State University professor Dan Franklin said the deal is "terrible optics."

"Not only is it terrible optics, it's terrible period," he added.

Campaign finance records show Talitrix gave Labat's campaign $34,800 between 2020 and 2022. Jones and his son, who also works at Talitrix, each gave $1,000 to Labat's campaign in 2022. Jones' wife gave $2,800 in 2020 as well, along with one of Jones' companies, TJ Ventures, giving $2,800 in 2020.>

<While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Disney World are preparing to go to battle in federal and state court, the battle over the changes to Disney World’s special District has been having a significant impact on the grassroots level already. Employees of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District were recently informed they would be losing the Disney World annual passes that came as a perk of employment, and they’re now being told they owe $2 million in back taxes on the passes they previously received.

The Orlando Sentinel obtained a memo written by district administrator Glen Gilzean in which he informs employees that the Annual Passes that had been available previously were a taxable benefit, and that “previous leadership chose not to inform staff” about this fact. Gilzean says he working with the IRS to try and remedy the situation in a way that doesn’t require the employees to pay the outstanding taxes.

Some benefits that employers can offer employees are non-taxable, but it appears the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District feels that these passes do not qualify. Certainly, the district could also pay these taxes, but it will likely have to do so if it doesn’t saddle the employees with the cost, and since the overwhelming majority of the revenue the district gets comes from Disney itself, ultimately it’s Disney paying the cost anyway. Disney World is functionally paying for both sides of its state lawsuit against the board.

While this question will certainly need to be properly addressed to get everybody on the right side of tax laws, it won’t be an issue going forward, because the CFTOD recently ended the Disney World annual pass perk for employees. Disney World sent the board a bill for $2.5 million to pay for the benefits that employees had used in the park, which set off a firestorm. Several employees of the district spoke out in favor of the AP perk, with some claiming the pass was a major reason they chose to go to work for the district in the first place, it was available to both current and retired employees.

In its place, the board is offering employees a $1000 stipend, which they can use on anything, including buying the APs themselves, though the previous employee perk apparently covered employees and their families, and $1000 certainly isn't enough to buy passes for even a small family.

If the district is going to cover the cost of the taxes, it could have done so quietly. The fact that everybody was told about this was likely a very intentional way to attempt to curry favor with employees. Evidence has indicated recently that morale is fairly low in the district, with many who have resigned recently reportedly saying that they did not like working there after Governor DeSantis appointed his own board, as part of his ongoing battle with Disney World.>

<On Thursday, after some heated debate and a few days of delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee finally voted to subpoena two key players in the Supreme Court’s pay-to-play scandal that has been uncovered over the past year. The move was long overdue and hopefully it won’t be the last.

Most people know the basic backstory. Thanks to the dogged reporting of several media outlets this year, particularly ProPublica, the curtain has been pulled back on a decadeslong influence scheme aimed at the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. But a group of ultrawealthy benefactors at the center of the Supreme Court’s ethics crisis have thumbed their noses at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s efforts to uncover the scope of the financial entanglements. They brazenly rebuffed Senate investigators who requested information about lavish, undisclosed travel and other gifts they have bestowed on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

But now the committee is pushing back—welcome news, especially for the overwhelming majority of the public that wants a more ethical Supreme Court (and a functional Congress, for good measure).

The targets of the Senate’s investigations are not just anyone. Two of them—Harlan Crow and Robin Arkley—are billionaires who have contributed their considerable largesse to a yearslong campaign to radically alter the Supreme Court, lavishing Thomas and Alito with luxury travel in the company of conservative activists. (For his part, Arkley agreed to cooperate with the committee, which dropped its subpoena threat in his case.) At the same time, the Supreme Court has even considered cases involving businesses with direct ties to Crow and Paul Singer, another benefactor and subject of the committee’s investigation (who also was not a subpoena target at Thursday’s vote).

A common thread in a network of wealthy individuals, government officials, and advocates who have orchestrated the current right-wing supermajority on the court is another target of the investigation: the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo. He is the driving force behind the Federalist Society’s judicial pipeline and a billion-dollar network of groups working to reshape the law in favor of corporations and the über-wealthy. Arkley is reportedly a major donor to Leo’s groups....>

<....This is not an abstract project: No fewer than four cases the court is to decide in this term alone could dramatically advance this agenda, including a case that would allow the justices to rewrite regulations that affect our air, water, labor practices, consumer finance, and a host of other questions. Known as the Chevron doctrine, the legal principle at issue in one of these cases has been the subject of years of criticism orchestrated by Leo and Crow. And Justice Thomas, who defended the doctrine in a 2005 opinion, has since become its primary critic on the court following years of unofficial and undisclosed gifts by these benefactors. He also failed (again) to disclose his participation in exclusive fundraisers and gatherings where the reversal of the Chevron doctrine was often a topic of discussion.

For any official to accept undisclosed gifts of the magnitude reported this year would warrant a Senate investigation. The fact that these gifts came from people engaged in a covert effort to shape the court, its power, and its opinions makes an investigation into how these gifts may have influenced the justices all the more urgent.

This is a textbook case for congressional oversight. There are widely reported—and salient—allegations of financial relationships between government officials and those seeking to influence their decisions. These relationships seem to violate existing law. And they have a direct bearing on legislation that should prevent exactly this kind of corruptive influence. Of course, Congress should ask the billionaires who provided these gifts for more details; it’s an entirely appropriate response to a growing crisis.

But the stakes are even higher than that. Leo and Crow have refused to turn information over to the committee, and accepting their justifications for doing so could gut Congress’s ability to conduct any oversight—regardless of the subject.

Their excuses run from the baseless claim that Congress can’t regulate Supreme Court ethics to the preposterous argument that Congress can’t investigate people it disagrees with politically. In short, according to Leo and the billionaires, being friends with sufficiently powerful officials puts private citizens beyond the reach of congressional investigations.

These claims are as dangerous as they are absurd. The notion that Congress can’t regulate ethics on the court ignores a long and uncontroversial history of Congress doing just that. To name just the most directly comparable example, the 1978 Ethics in Government Act has required financial disclosures from judges and justices for decades—and that provision has been upheld in federal court. To accept the argument that Congress lacks authority is to put the justices truly above the law. By that logic, the justices would be immune from federal laws prohibiting bribery—which they are not.

Not all of those targeted by Senate investigators are making such spurious arguments. In fact, some have recognized their responsibility to voluntarily provide information—and illustrated the need for continued investigation. In a separate but related probe, the Senate Finance Committee sought and received documents from yet another Thomas benefactor, health care magnate Anthony Welters, about possible tax law violations stemming from Welters’ loan of over $250,000 to Thomas for purchase of a luxury motor coach.

That’s why the Judiciary Committee’s vote last week to subpoena is a serious but necessary move. It’s time to compel compliance from these recalcitrant targets. The Senate cannot stand by while a handful of plutocrats try to dictate the terms of its constitutional authority.>

<There are so many good reasons to invest in an electric vehicle. They are much cheaper to run than traditional dirty-fuel-powered cars, you can charge them up at home, and they produce zero planet-warming pollution when out on the road.

The United States government has just made it even more attractive, with the $7,500 federal tax credit for purchasing one now a lot easier to get hold of.

According to NPR, from January 2024 on, customers will not need to wait for the next tax year to roll around before getting their hands on the incentive. Whether as a cash reimbursement or as a down payment for their next vehicle, the outlet said: “The credit will be available as cash in hand on the day of purchase.”

“For the first time, the Inflation Reduction Act allows consumers to reduce the up-front cost of a clean vehicle, expanding consumer choices and helping car dealers expand their businesses,” an announcement from the United States Department of the Treasury said.

“The IRS has focused on streamlining this process for car dealers as part of its commitment to improving service and helping taxpayers claim the credits they are eligible for.”

Not only is the process a lot quicker, but it’s been designed to be easier for both dealer and customer, too.

NPR said dealerships will register with the IRS, and they can then confirm whether the vehicle on sale applies for the tax credit by checking the vehicle identification number.

That takes the burden off of customers to try to figure out if their desired model allows for the generous benefit.

Customers still need to confirm the car will be for personal use and that they’re not a dependent on anyone else’s taxes, and they will also need to be under the income limit of $150,000 adjusted gross income for an individual, $225,000 for a head of household, and $300,000 for married couples filing jointly or surviving spouses.

While there are still circumstances in which the incentive will need to be repaid, such as passing the income cap in consecutive tax years, it’s still going to help a lot of people on lower annual incomes invest in the technology.

In December, though, the Biden Administration announced that, starting in 2024, “vehicles are not eligible for the clean vehicle credit if the battery contains battery components manufactured or assembled or applicable critical minerals extracted, processed or recycled by a foreign entity of concern.”

In Deloitte’s Global Automotive Consumer Study, the cost or price premium of an electric vehicle was the number one barrier for customers looking to buy a battery-powered electric vehicle, with 52% of U.S. respondents citing this as the biggest concern.

But $7,500 is a serious chunk of change to make bringing an electric vehicle home a lot more viable.>

<Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), has delivered a stark message to advertisers that boycotted the platform after he commented favorably on an antisemitic post: “Go f— yourself!”

In a tricky exchange with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin at the New York Times' DealBook Summit, on Nov. 30, Musk dropped several F-bombs against companies who have stopped advertising on the social media platform.

‘If somebody’s going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money — go f— yourself,” he said, specifically calling out Walt Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger, who earlier in the DealBook Summit had said associating with Musk and X was “not necessarily a positive” for Disney.

“What this advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company,” said Musk, with the warning: “The whole world will know that advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”

Musk has faced a torrent of criticism after replying to an X post on Nov. 15 that claims Jewish people are stoking hatred against white people. Musk commented: “You have said the actual truth.”

Many major U.S. companies — including Apple (AAPL), Coca-Cola (KO), Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), NBCUniversal parent Comcast (CMCSA) and many more — suspended their ads on X in response to the tweet, as well as to a report, from the advocacy group Media Matters, that showed ads for major corporations, including Apple and Comcast, appearing next to pro-Nazi and antisemitic material on the site.

X subsequently sued Media Matters over the report.

Even the White House weighed in on Musk’s post, stating: “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms.”

Musk did apologize at the DealBook Summit, describing his actions as “foolish” and admitting he had “handed a loaded gun” to both detractors and antisemitic people by sharing the controversial post with his 165 million followers.

But that did not stop the Tesla (TSLA) CEO from launching a profanity-laced tirade against the advertisers that have left the social media platform.

And when Sorkin presented the idea that Musk may actually be the one who will cause the downfall of X, and that advertisers are leaving the platform because they “didn’t feel comfortable” being associated with his “inappropriate” posts, Musk simply replied: “Let’s see how Earth responds to that.”

A painful price to pay

The advertising freezes on X could cost the company as much as $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year, according to internal documents viewed by The New York Times.

U.S. advertising on the platform is down nearly 60% this year — a dramatic decline that chief executive Linda Yaccarino is trying to turn around.

In an X post after Musk’s explosive interview on Wednesday, Yaccarino wrote: “My perspective when it comes to advertising: X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and is here to welcome you. To our partners who believe in our meaningful work — Thank You.”>

<Donald Trump has lashed out at opponents that have come from his own party as critical ads of him created by the Lincoln Project ran on Fox News.

The former president railed against the political action committee (PAC) founded by moderate Republicans on his media platform Truth Social late Monday night. He said the group was made up of "perverts and losers" and also made an apparently false claim that the Lincoln Project "and others" were using artificial intelligence (AI) in creating their ads despite the video featuring a number of his well-known gaffes.

"The perverts and losers at the failed and once disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I.(Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad and pathetic as Crooked Joe Biden, not an easy thing to do," Trump said. "FoxNews shouldn't run these ads, just as low ratings CNN & MSDNC will not, under any circumstances, run negative ads on Biden or the Democrats." This suggests that the 45th president saw the ad on Fox News, though that is not confirmed.

Newsweek approached Fox News and The Lincoln Project for comment.

The Lincoln Project was founded in 2019 by former Republican strategists, according to its website. This includes George Conway, who in March announced his divorce from former senior counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, as well as Steve Schmidt, veteran Republican strategist and former adviser to the late John McCain. The group's stated aim is to "protect the American Republic from Donald Trump" and his supporters.

Trump remains the clear favorite among likely voters in the Republican Party to become the candidate for the 2024 presidential election. Polling average from analysis website FiveThirtyEight shows that as of Monday, Trump had a 45.3-point lead over his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

One of the recent ads distributed by the Lincoln Project mocked Trump including the time he visited wildlife damage in California in 2018 in the town of Paradise. "We just left Pleasure," he told reporters at the time, before he was corrected.

Also in the ad was the time Trump having difficulting [sic] pronouncing the word "anonymous" at a rally in Billings, Montana, in 2018. The ad titled "Feeble" went on to suggest Trump displayed a number of insecurities concerning President Joe Biden.

"Face it Donald, you're just projecting when you call Joe Biden old," the ad's narration says. He's stronger than you, fitter than you, smarter than you, a better man and a better president... anyone can see it."

It continued: "When you lay there at night alone, you know we're right. You're falling apart Donald, breaking down. Right in front of our eyes."

The use of AI in political ads remains a controversial subject. The Republican National Committee (RNC) released an ad generated entirely by AI in April, in reaction to the news of Biden's reelection campaign. In it, fake pictures of what an American under a second Biden presidential term would supposedly look like were used, including military patrols on the streets. The RNC ad did include a disclaimer.

In November, Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram said it would require political ads appearing on its platform to disclose to users if AI was used.

States are legislating in an attempt to play catch-up to the burgeoning development of AI. The likes of California, Washington and Texas have all introduced laws to tackle the use of deepfakes—digitally manipulated media used to depict a person in a fake scenario—while a new bill in Michigan expected to be signed into law soon by Governor Gretchen Whitmer will require ads to disclose if they are AI-generated.>

<The idea of Donald Trump pardoning himself or ending his federal prosecutions if he's elected president again has been much debated.

But what happens to the state prosecutions he's facing is less certain.

Enter the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which says federal law essentially trumps a state law. On Friday, the 235-year old provision was central to a key exchange between Trump's attorneys and the state judge overseeing the former president’s criminal case in Georgia. Hours later, a federal judge gave the clause a citation in her landmark opinion that was otherwise bad news for Trump. Both judges raised the topic as a potential way to block state prosecutions.

“This isn’t one that has to be answered now, but I think it might be worth considering,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee asked Trump’s lawyers during a day-long hearing in Atlanta. “If your client does win election in 2024 – could he even be tried in 2025?”

"The answer to that is, I believe that under the Supremacy Clause and his duties as president of the United States, this trial would not take place at all until after he left his term of office," the attorney, Steve Sadow, replied, referring to the provision that states the federal constitution and federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.”

McAfee offered prosecutors an opportunity to respond to Sadow, which they declined. "I think that's obviously something we're going to be taking up in greater detail (in) the new year," the judge said.

In her own bristling 48-page opinion released late Friday that otherwise rejected Trump’s argument that he is immune from prosecution for events related to the aftermath of the 2020 election, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found some common ground with Trump's lawyers regarding the Georgia charges with a brief reference to the Supremacy Clause.

In response to Trump's claims that rejecting presidential immunity would subject him to an endless series of prosecutions in various state and local jurisdictions, Chutkan noted he is charged only with federal crimes in her case, "so any ruling here will be limited to that context and would not extend to state or local prosecutions — which in any event might run afoul of the Supremacy Clause."

Trump envisions trial in 2029

Trump has pleaded not guilty to a total of 13 state felony counts in the sprawling election-racketeering case in Georgia.

He also opposed District Attorney Fani Willis’ proposal to begin the trial in early August. That’s a schedule that, if approved by McAfee, would mean the 2024 Republican front-runner for the White House would be at the tail end of a White House campaign pleading for Americans’ votes at the same time he’s trying to convince a jury in Georgia to allow him to maintain his personal freedom.

In answering McAfee’s question last week about trying Trump should he win the White House next November, Sadow argued that his client could not be prosecuted on the Georgia state charges until the new president’s second term ended in 2029.

Mike Davis, a former Senate GOP staffer whom Donald Trump Jr., recently mused would make an ideal pick for his father as an acting attorney general, said in an interview that there could be a standoff over any state-led attempt to incarcerate Trump in the event he’s convicted in Georgia but also won the 2024 election.

“A Democrat prosecutor and Trump deranged judges don’t get to decide the presidential election,” Davis said. “The American people get to decide the presidential election. This shows the maliciousness and recklessness of this Democrat lawfare [sic] against the leading presidential candidate. There’s no way in hell the American people will let the duly elected president of the United States sit in a jail cell when they want him in the White House.”

The question of what ultimately happens when someone is elected president while facing state criminal charges actually has no clear answer, according to legal experts.

“It’s one of the largest unresolved questions in American law, whether you can have a criminal process against a sitting president. We don’t know how that would come out,” said Norm Eisen, a former Obama-era White House ethics lawyer.....>

<....“Both sides are guessing,” added former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb. “There’s no precedent for it. It’d have to be resolved by the Supreme Court. There is no clear legal support for either argument.”

Trump has been charged with 91 state and federal felony counts in four jurisdictions in 2023. In addition to the Georgia indictment, he is facing a March 204 trial on four federal felony charges in the Washington, D.C. election-subversion case and a May 2024 trial on 40 federal felony charges in south Florida. He also faces state felony charges in New York, though the trial that's also currently scheduled for next March is expected to be delayed to accommodate the D.C. case.

‘Uncharted territory’

Eisen acknowledged that the Justice Department would file motions to strike the Georgia case if Trump won a second term. But he wasn’t willing to concede the Supreme Court would find that a state conviction must be set aside for the whole four years.

“I recognize the common sense view of the federal Supremacy Clause that says it’s unlikely he’d be forced to serve his term in a Georgia state facility,” he said. “On the other hand, the fundamental principle of American law is that no one is above it. It’s not certain that the Supreme Court would nullify a validly-obtained conviction, particularly in a state court, particularly where it was adjudicated prior to the presidency based on conduct before 2025. Anyone who tells you they know how it turns out is being overconfident.”

On the issue of whether a president could serve his term from behind bars in a state prison, there is no clear consensus.

A former senior Trump DOJ official argued there’s no way the Supreme Court would take the position that a president convicted in a state case could be imprisoned by a state.

“He’d have to be released,” the former senior DOJ official said, citing as a counter example a situation in which a local DA in a deep-red state decided to charge President Joe Biden while he was in office and then secured a conviction. “They can’t come get him.”

“It’s silly. It’s just wrong. I’ll bet you $1 million dollars he won’t be serving as president from any prison anywhere,” the former senior Trump DOJ official added of their former boss.

Davis, who runs the Article III project that during Trump’s first term helped secure lifetime appointments for more than 230 federal judges, said in an interview that there could be a standoff over any state-led attempt to incarcerate Trump in the event he won the 2024 election.

“If Democrat [sic] Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and some Trump-deranged Brian Kemp judge think they’re going to incarcerate a duly elected president of the United States they’re going to have a big problem with the Secret Service, which is required by statute to protect a former president, a major presidential candidate, a president-elect and a president of the United States,” Davis said.....>

<.....In Georgia, unlike the two federal cases, a general election victory in 2024 would not hand Trump the power to pardon himself if he is convicted, or order an end to the prosecution if it is still under way. The presidential pardon powers apply to only federal charges, though there's considerable debate over whether a president could pardon himself. It does not apply for any state charges.

Trump’s ability to make all of his federal cases go away “magnifies the importance of the state cases in Georgia,” said Stuart Gerson, a former senior DOJ official from the George H.W. Bush administration who served as acting Attorney General at the beginning of the Clinton administration.

“It's uncharted territory,” Gerson said, noting that during the Watergate scandal even then-President Richard Nixon resigned from office once he recognized he’d be convicted in a Senate trial had the House followed through with impeachment.

‘No law on that issue’

Under longstanding Justice Department policy dating back to Nixon, a sitting president cannot be subject to indictment or prosecution on federal charges while in office.

But a scenario in which a sitting president actively faces state charges is one that the nation’s legal system has not yet grappled with.

Cobb, the former Trump White House lawyer, said the issue “would almost certainly get to the Supreme Court” if Trump won the 2024 election and a state continued to prosecute him.

“Beyond that they can’t make an argument as to what happens after he’s president and they can’t make an argument as to whether that policy would apply to a state. Nothing out there that remotely hints at what the possibilities are,” Cobb said.

“It’s really clear that this is something where anybody who tries to speak definitively is full of s**t,” Cobb added.

The country’s founders, Cobb said, “never assumed you’d elect a convicted felon so they didn’t provide for it in the Constitution and the Constitution is silent on this.”

It’s the type of potential Constitutional quandary that previously existed only in the imagination of law professors.

“20 years ago, I was gonna write a screenplay about this, literally. A slight variation,” said Akhil Reed Amar, Yale University’s Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, and a Trump critic who previously served as an informal consultant to “The West Wing.” “And so it's been an issue I've thought about a lot and I think you're, you're asking the right questions.”

Amar said in an interview that he didn’t ultimately write his story.

“Now,” he said, “it would look unimaginative.”>

< No need to say anything. We know how we've been repeatedly, selectively mistreated while other members skate for posted guideline violations. The troll above received no consequence whatsoever for following FTB all about.

Seasons change, and the truth is on our side. January 6th is coming.

You should look for chess streamers during titled Tuesday and dump this ghost ship, at least for a couple dayz a week. CGs is only getting worse, not better. One day the hackers will win while management is out to lunch and you'll have to get your chess fix some other way.

It's time to ready for the holidayz!>

<[Event "Greater Boston Championship"] [Site "Boston MA USA"]
[Date "1968.10.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Peters, Jack"]
[Black "Harrington, Dan"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B25"]
[EventDate "1968.10.??"]
[Source "Chess (Dondis, H): Boston Globe (1968-11-03) p48_B "]

<Far-right Florida Rep Matt Gaetz has claimed that the press is “green-lighting” the assassination of former President Donald Trump by reporting on what a second Trump term would look like.

On Monday, Mr Gaetz tweeted “They’re obviously green-lighting assassination” and included a screenshot from a Washington Post op-ed by Post Opinions contributing editor Robert Kagan bearing the headline “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending”.

Responding to Mr Gaetz, Condé Nast Legal Affairs Editor Luke Zaleski noted that “There is nothing you can say or do to confront Maga gaslighting that won’t be met with more MAGA gaslighting”.

“They’ll say anything to make themselves the victim and hero in everything. And there is nothing you can say to do anything about it. That is the MAGA gaslighting paradox,” he added.

The image for the op-ed was a split image with the top being the head of a statue of Roman dictator Julius Ceaser, who was assassinated in 44BC, and the bottom being the face of Mr Trump.

Mr Kagan writes that “the national mood less than a year before the election is one of bipartisan disgust with the political system in general. Rarely in American history has democracy’s inherent messiness been more striking”.

“In Weimar Germany, Hitler and other agitators benefited from the squabbling of the democratic parties, right and left, the endless fights over the budget, the logjams in the legislature, the fragile and fractious coalitions,” he added. “German voters increasingly yearned for someone to cut through it all and get something — anything — done. It didn’t matter who was behind the political paralysis, either, whether the intransigence came from the right or the left.”

The Post editor goes on to say that the “likeliest outcome” of Mr Trump’s many upcoming trials “will be to demonstrate our judicial system’s inability to contain someone like Trump and, incidentally, to reveal its impotence as a check should he become president”.

“Indicting Trump for trying to overthrow the government will prove akin to indicting Caesar for crossing the Rubicon, and just as effective. Like Caesar, Trump wields a clout that transcends the laws and institutions of government, based on the unswerving personal loyalty of his army of followers,” he adds.

Mr Kagan argues that if Mr Trump wins in 2024, he’ll “become the most powerful person ever to hold that office” with the “fewest constraints of any president, fewer even than in his own first term”.

“Would he even obey a directive of the Supreme Court? Or would he instead ask how many armored divisions the chief justice has?” he asks.

“Trump might not want or need a third term, but were he to decide he wanted one, as he has sometimes indicated, would the 22nd Amendment block him any more effectively from being president for life than the Supreme Court, if he refused to be blocked?” Mr Kagan notes.

“Today, there is the whiff of a new McCarthyism in the air,” he adds, noting the many baseless accusations of those not on Mr Trump’s side being “communists”.

“The Trump dictatorship will not be a communist tyranny, where almost everyone feels the oppression and has their lives shaped by it,” Mr Kagan goes on to say. “In conservative, anti-liberal tyrannies, ordinary people face all kinds of limitations on their freedoms, but it is a problem for them only to the degree that they value those freedoms, and many people do not ... if most Americans can go about their daily business, they might not care, just as many Russians and Hungarians do not care.”

Mr Gaetz’s followers on X were quick to respond with outrage.

Auron MacIntyre, a columnist at the rightwing outlet The Blaze, wrote: “Nobody talks about it but there were already assassination attempts on Trump. When Trump inevitably becomes the nominee you are going to watch the very last shred of sanity break in the media.”

He didn’t provide any evidence for his claims.

Failed GOP 2022 Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake simply called The Post “despicable”.>

That put some lead in your pencil, <fredmentiroso>?

<The judge in Donald Trump's New York civil fraud trial denied the former president's request to postpone his testimony in the case, saying on Tuesday, "No way, no how."

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has been civilly sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James for $250 million. In her lawsuit, James alleges that Trump, his adult sons, 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. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has called the trial politically motivated.

During the course of the trial, Trump has made repeated attacks on judges and court staff, often taking to Truth Social, his social media platform, to voice his stance, which caused him to be issued gag orders. The former president attacked Judge Arthur Engoron's, who is overseeing the case, longtime law clerk, Alison Greenfield, on social media, which made Engoron fine him twice after the insults. More recently, Engoron's wife has also been at the center of Trump's attacks after she was accused of posting derogatory claims about the former president. She has denied these allegations.

On Tuesday, Engoron denied a request from Trump's lawyers which asked the court to postpone Trump's testimony scheduled for December 11.

"Absolutely not, no way, no how," Engoron said.

Newsweek has reached out to Trump via email for comment.

Adam Klasfeld, senior legal correspondent at the Messenger, took to X, formerly Twitter, to share the rest of Engoron's response as he denied the request.

Justice Engoron then told Kise jovially, "You tried." After a slight pause, the judge added, "And I gave it a deep thought as well."

This comes after a state appellate court judge temporarily froze two gag orders in November that Engoron imposed on Trump. However, the appellate court then lifted them until it heard a full appeal from Trump's lawyers, who wanted the gag orders removed.

After the gag order was reinstated, Engoron commented on the ruling that he intends to enforce it "rigorously and vigorously," according to the Associated Press. Trump's attorney, Chris Kise, said he was aware of the ruling adding that it's "a tragic day for the rule of law," according to the AP.

This also follows Eric Trump's reversal on Tuesday in which he will no longer take the stand as a defense witness in the case. The former president's son was scheduled to testify Wednesday as one of the final witnesses in the case.

However, the reversal came because "everything Eric was going to cover was covered by other witnesses," Alan Garten, the Trump Organization's executive vice president, told NBC News.

Trump last testified on November 6, his adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his daughter Ivanka Trump also testified in the case.

During Trump's testimony last month, he lashed out against the judge and lawyers in the case, whom he decried as "unfair." The former president also went head to head with Engoron as he told Trump's lawyers to "control him" and warned that "this isn't a political rally."

The trial will resume on Thursday, with testimony from accounting expert Professor Eli Bartov of NYU. Trump is likely to attend the trial as a spectator on Thursday, his attorney Chris Kise told reporters on Monday.>