<Felicity Huffman is opening up about the death of her "old life" after her role in the college admissions scandal.

The "Desperate Housewives" actress spoke with The Guardian about the aftermath following her guilty plea in 2019 to paying $15,000 to have her daughter's SAT answers corrected. She served 11 days in prison and said she has hardly worked since then.

"I did a pilot for ABC recently that didn't get picked up," she said. "It's been hard. Sort of like your old life died and you died with it. I'm lucky enough to have a family and love and means, so I had a place to land."

Huffman is married to "Shameless" star William H. Macy, with whom she shares two children. He was not charged in connection with the scandal. In the interview, Huffman said that while it's a "loaded question" to ask how she's doing now, "as long as my kids are well and my husband is well, I feel like I'm well."

In addition to spending 11 days in prison, Huffman paid a $30,000 fine and was ordered to complete 250 hours of community service. She was one of several celebrities tied up in the nationwide cheating scandal, also known as Operation Varsity Blues, alongside "Full House" star Lori Loughlin, who was sentenced to two months in prison for paying to get her daughters into college as crew recruits even though they did not row.

Huffman said her case is "black and white," stressing, "I did it" in her interview with The Guardian, where she also discussed starring in the new revival of Taylor Mac's "Hir." But she went on to say that while she is not in "any way whitewashing what I did," some people "have been kind and compassionate" to her, while "others have not."

Huffman previously broke her silence about the college admissions scandal in a December interview with ABC7 in Los Angeles, saying she felt she had no choice but to break the law at time because she feared her daughter wouldn't get into the colleges she wanted to.

"It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future," Huffman said. "And so it was sort of like my daughter's future, which meant I had to break the law."

Huffman also apologized in the interview to the academic community "and to the students and the families that [sic] sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately."

In November 2020, ABC confirmed to USA TODAY that Huffman would co-star in a baseball comedy pilot, but the show never became a series. Huffman later starred in an episode of "The Good Doctor" in 2023 called "The Good Lawyer," which was reportedly intended to set up a possible spin-off that Huffman would star in. According to Deadline, ABC ultimately decided not to move forward with the series.>

<Far-right Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently got into a feud with Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, and to say he embarrassed her would be an understatement.

During a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday, McGovern criticized MTG for her resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and censure Rep. Ilhan Omar.

"The clowns are running the circus around here," McGovern argued. "We're wasting hours and hours of time this week on Marjorie Taylor Greene because what? She wants to impeach somebody.

"And don't even get me started on her absurd censure resolution of Congresswoman Omar that she introduced because she doesn't know how to use Google Translate.

Later that day, Greene shared a clip of McGovern's rant on social media and added a bizarre claim about how he conducts himself in the bathroom.

"Wow, this is coming from the same guy who is well known to lay his suit jacket on the actual bathroom floor while spending a lot of time in the stall of the first floor bathroom of the Capitol," she said in the post.

In response, McGovern clapped back, "No idea what you're talking about... what are you doing in the men's bathroom, aren't you late for a Klan meeting?"

In his diatribe, McGovern also said MTG's "legislative agenda is revenge, retaliation, and impeachment," noting that 10 of the 20 resolutions she has introduced "are to impeach or censure people she doesn't like.">

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) stormed out of a committee meeting on Tuesday as a Democratic lawmaker gave her a reminder about her own recent past during a hearing on crime in Washington, D.C.

Greene, a conspiracy theorist who spoke at a white nationalist event in 2022, went on a lengthy rant on everything from crime in the nation’s capital to gun rights to Donald Trump to Black Lives Matter and beyond.

“That was a lot,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said when she was done, then pointed out what he found “ironic” about Greene talking about crime in Washington, D.C.

“She literally supported an insurrection and attack on the Capitol,” Garcia said.

He said Greene “coddled” the insurrectionists when she visited them last year in jail, where she offered them handshakes and pats on the back and said they were “political prisoners.” “They actually tried to overthrow our government,” Garcia reminded her.

That caused Greene ― who last month called Hunter Biden a “coward” for leaving a hearing when she was speaking about him ― to walk out of the hearing. She appeared to shout something as she left, but it’s not clear what she tried to say.

“She’s insane,” Garcia later wrote on X:

Garcia last year also lashed out at Greene over her support for those arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.

“The first thing she does is ... greets them and hugs them and prays with them and apologizes and is treating them like heroes, and I’m sitting there going, this is disgusting,” Garcia told MeidasTouch co-founder Ben Meiselas in autumn. “These people attacked our government, they tried to overthrow our government.”>

Payback's a biyatch, and Garcia was the biyatch.

<Former President Donald Trump is "chickening out" of the Supreme Court case on his 2024 candidacy, according to his former national security adviser.

"Trump is chickening out by avoiding attending the Supreme Court argument this week," former Trump official John Bolton wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

"He knows he's badly outnumbered by people who respect the rule of law," Bolton said. "Anyone who assumes that the three Supreme Court Justices that Trump appointed will blindly rule in his favor doesn't know the kind of Justices he selected."

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the 14th Amendment case challenging Trump's eligibility to serve a second term on Thursday. Citing Trump's role in the January 6 Capitol riot, the case—brought by a group of Colorado voters—argues that Trump should be disqualified by a constitutional clause, which prohibits an individual who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from serving federal or state office.

Last month, the Colorado Supreme Court decided that Trump's actions related to the Capitol riot in 2021 make him ineligible for the presidency and ordered that Trump's name be removed from the state's Republican primary ballot. Trump's appeal of the decision is the case being presented before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Trump is not expected to attend Thursday's hearing, where attorney and conservative advocate Johnathan Mitchell will be making the former president's arguments to the justices. Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment.

Bolton said he doesn't believe Trump will appear because the former president is "worried he's outnumbered nine to one," referencing the court's nine justices.

"It's not just some district judge somewhere, some state court judge in New York, this is the Supreme Court. This is the third branch of government sitting in front of him," Bolton told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday. "Three of whose members he appointed."

Trump appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanugh and Amy Coney Barrett during his first term. Even though Trump's appointees have tipped the court and created a conservative supermajority, Bolton said those justices won't just bend to Trump's will and that it's likely Trump will "be disappointed in them" for possibly disagreeing with him.

The Supreme Court is also expected to hear the issue of Trump's immunity claim in the coming months. The former president has tried to argue that he is immune from criminal prosecution for his actions following the 2020 presidential election. It is unclear if Trump would attend oral arguments for the immunity claim at a later date.>

<Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is asking her colleagues for support on a new bill that would force members of Congress to deploy to a war zone if they advocate for military support to Ukraine in its battle with Russia.

The legislation, obtained first by DailyMail.com, would ‘require Members of Congress who advocate for providing military support for Ukraine to enlist in the armed forces and to serve on active duty in support of a contingency operation.’

The U.S. has offered over $75 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since Vladimir Putin's invasion, and Congress is now locked in a contentious battle to offer some $60 billion more.

The Florida Republican's bill comes in response to an MSNBC interview Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave where he warned that without Ukraine fighting, the U.S. could have boots on the ground to fight Russia in Eastern Europe soon.

‘If we don’t aid Ukraine, Putin will walk all over Ukraine, we will lose the war, and we could be fighting in Eastern Europe in a NATO ally in a few years. Americans won’t like that,’ the New York Democrat said.

The Senators Can Help Underpin Military Engagement and Readiness Act, or the SCHUMER Act, would require those who advocate for military support to be assigned ‘not fewer than six months to active duty in support of a contingency operation.’

Luna’s office has asked other members to sign onto the legislation by February 12 if they want to be an original co-sponsor.

‘In honor of Chuck Schumer, I’ll be introducing a bill that will require any politician who advocates for sending American troops to Ukraine to be required to fight on the front lines with them,’ Luna wrote on Twitter after Schumer’s interview.

The bill comes as the Senate is weighing how to move forward to offer aid to embattled U.S. allies after a bipartisan immigration went down in flames.

The long-awaited deal, which combined aid for Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and Taiwan aid with immigration measures, was released Sunday and defeated days later after House Republicans insisted it would be dead on arrival.

Republicans quickly rejected Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's vote to move the $118 bill border security bill forward 49 to 50 following days of outrage by the GOP. They said the bill didn't go far enough to secure the border.

Schumer, D-N.Y., said the vote would 'show who is serious about securing the border - and who is not.'

With that failure on the floor to get 60 votes to advance, attention immediately turned to a new effort to move Ukraine and Israel aid without the border language – with numerous Republicans saying they would go along with the idea.

‘If they do that and send it over, we'll see what the speaker wants to do,’ Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told DailyMail.com of the prospect.

But any sort of Ukraine aid moving to the floor would likely rankle the right wing of the GOP in the House like Luna. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has already said she would consider filing a motion to vacate if that happened.>

<Emotions ran high among House Republicans on Tuesday following a double defeat on Homeland Security Secretay Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment and an aid package for Israel.

The vote on Mayorkas ended in a 215-215 tie after three members of the House GOP — Reps. Ken Buck, Colo., Mike Gallagher, Wisc., and Tom McClintock, Calif. — voted against it.

The hotly debated proposed impeachment was the result of House GOP efforts to oust Mayorkas for perceived failure to enforce U.S. immigration policies at the border, violating public trust, and “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law," per the Washington Post. Multiple hearings were held to discuss the impeachment proceedings, with many Democratic lawmakers claiming that they were baseless and politically motivated, also highlighting previous and ethically questionable border proposals made by former president Donald Trump, including building alligator moats along the border.

Axios described the recent Republican losses as part of an ongoing pattern in which the party fails to advance legislation due to their largely polarized conference.

"I knew that we would have … the ability to block the Democrat agenda," Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., told Axios. "We've exceeded my wildest expectations on blocking, because we not only block the Democrat agenda, we block the Republican agenda. We don't have command of the field."

Other House GOP members singled out their three colleagues for voting with Democrats — in recent times, the notion of bipartisan agreement has been treated as increasingly taboo by some GOP lawmakers, as seen with their heavy opposition to bipartisan-border related legislation only after Trump spoke out against it.

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, told Axios that that vote on Mayorkas was "shameful," adding, "I mean, what the hell are they thinking? We should have gotten this done."

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., shared his frustration, saying "There's a plethora of reasoning and justification and evidence ... I just don't understand why we can't do the one thing the American people want."

"It's very frustrating as a freshman to realize that we don't have the cohesiveness and the fortitude to come together to vote what's right for America," said Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo.

Conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Ga., well-known for unabashedly speaking her mind, said she didn't have anything to say to Buck, Gallagher, and McClintock.

"I think they'll hear from their constituents," Greene said.

Still, others held out hope that Mayorkas will ultimately be impeached.

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., seemed to suggest that the absence of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who is recovering from cancer treatment, was the deciding factor in the tie vote.

"If Scalise comes in tomorrow then we've got the votes," Burlison said. "So I think it just delays it."

Speaking about the Israel bill, which Axios referred to as "a GOP chess move against President Biden," Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., told Axios that "'Frustrating' is not the right word … it's maddening."

Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, called the Israel vote "embarrassing," claiming that "They're trying to save face and do the right thing that should have been done to begin with … No one has to wonder how we got here, the speaker did it."

As Axios observed, the package of aid for Israel — the final vote for which was 250-180 — served as a "House GOP counter-measure" in the Senate's attempts to pass a bill that would allocate funds toward Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, and border security.>

There is one small snag in Traitor's narrow world view: Buck will answer to no-one, already having declared that this term in the House will be his last.

<Every party loses an election now and then. Both parties have spent whole decades on the outs, railing from the sidelines while their opponents controlled the agenda. However, it’s hard to think of a 24-hour period where any party has suffered so many self-inflicted disasters as the Republican Party experienced on Tuesday.

This beautiful run of disintegrating dignitas began on Monday evening when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke out to explain why the border security deal that had been negotiated over months was exactly what was needed to address “a humanitarian and security crisis of historic proportions.” Then he went behind closed doors three hours later to kill the bill on orders from Donald Trump.

The morning opened to chaos. Sen. James Lankford, who had been McConnell’s chief negotiator on the bill, explained how it felt to be run over by a bus. McConnell, who once completely dictated the actions of Republicans in the Senate, was revealed as a sad puppet. The remaining Republicans were left stumbling over themselves, trying to justify sabotaging the best deal they’re ever going to get.

In hours Republicans took the issue at the heart of their 2024 campaign and turned it into an anchor that President Joe Biden will hang around their necks.

And their day only went downhill from there.

After a morning spent scrambling to create a reason for their actions that went beyond simple fear of Trump, Republicans got some troubling news about their golden ruler. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia took Trump to task with a 57-page decision that shredded any delusions about “absolute immunity.”

For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.

The unanimous decision was extensive and authoritative enough that experts are suggesting the Supreme Court might not consider Trump’s appeal, assuming Trump’s crack legal team manages to meet the short filing deadline provided by the appellate court....>

<....But that was far from the end. Over on the House side of the Capitol, Republicans had cooked up the ridiculous impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for not being tougher on the border. Despite having just shot down a bill to get tougher on the border, they were determined to plunge blindly ahead under untested Speaker Mike Johnson.

Once again, Republicans learned that just because Nancy Pelosi made running a House vote look easy, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The reason Republicans were so eager to hold the vote on Tuesday evening was because they knew that Democratic Rep. Al Green was in the hospital after undergoing emergency abdominal surgery on Friday. Republicans hoped to take advantage of Green’s absence to give them a buffer against any Republican defections from their unjustified and patently ridiculous impeachment.

But with the vote already underway, Green appeared in a wheelchair to cast the decisive vote, putting the motion into a 215-215 tie. Johnson was forced to flip his vote to preserve the issue for a re-vote at a later date, resulting in a stunning and deeply embarrassing loss for the Republicans.

And the night still wasn’t over.

Earlier in the week, Republicans had prepared a stand-alone aid package for Israel in hopes that they could avoid having to vote on the Ukraine assistance and border security bill they had demanded for months. Johnson tried to push the Israel assistance package through using an accelerated procedure that required two-thirds of the votes.

Proving once again that counting is considered higher math for this Republican team, that bill also failed, falling over 30 votes short.

Republicans have suggested that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who missed the Tuesday night vote while undergoing cancer treatment, will be back on Wednesday so they can call a do-over. However, there is disagreement on this point.

But if there is one thing this Republican-led House knows how to do, it’s hold one humiliating vote after another. So they will probably make it happen someday.

But even after these two disastrous votes, the day still wasn’t over.

Soon after Johnson finally gaveled an end to fruitless efforts in the House, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel announced that she was stepping down. McDaniel has been under heavy pressure from Trump for failing to keep the RNC coffers filled with cash.

McDaniel is the niece of Sen. Mitt Romney, but she stopped using her family name at Trump’s request. Now he has essentially fired her. As usual, Trump’s idea of loyalty is strictly one-way.

Republicans are rolling into the new day with absolutely nothing to show for surrendering everything to Trump. The best bill they could have hoped to negotiate is gone, they didn’t get their sham impeachment, they didn’t get their Israel-without-Ukraine funding package, and the chair of the party is packing up to leave. Meanwhile, Trump is entering the day with a much greater chance that he will face criminal proceedings before the election.>

<Elon Musk just “pounds the table” in his escalating legal battle with the US labor board over his aerospace company SpaceX because he lacks a cogent argument, its top prosecutor said Wednesday.

“If the law is not on your side, and the facts aren’t on your side, then just pound the table and yell like hell,” said National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, applying an old aphorism, during an interview with Bloomberg in Washington Wednesday. “That’s what I feel that Elon Musk is doing.”

In January, Abruzzo’s office issued a complaint accusing SpaceX of illegally retaliating by firing eight workers who circulated an open letter criticizing the billionaire chief executive officer. SpaceX responded the next day by suing the labor board, arguing that its structure and proceedings are unconstitutional. The eight workers, Abruzzo said Wednesday, were terminated “for actually bringing up issues that they had around awful, misogynistic, sexist comments, conduct, etc.” What got them fired, she said, was merely “saying we’re in a workplace where this should not be OK and can we talk about this?”

The general counsel was similarly dismissive of legal volleys against the labor board from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc., and from Starbucks Corp., which until last year was led by billionaire Howard Schultz. In each case, she said, “they have these deep pockets,” so the companies can pursue lengthy appeals or lawsuits regardless of whether they have merit.

SpaceX didn’t respond to inquiries, and Amazon didn’t immediately comment. A Starbucks spokesperson declined to comment. All three companies have denied wrongdoing.

Amazon has filed numerous objections seeking to overturn a union’s victory in a 2022 election at its Staten Island, New York, warehouse, including arguing that Abruzzo’s office inappropriately influenced workers there by suing to try to get a fired activist reinstated. It has said it expects its legal battle with the labor board to continue to federal appeals court.

In Starbucks’ case, the Supreme Court agreed last month to hear an appeal from the coffee giant that’s challenging the labor board’s injunction requiring reinstatement of fired baristas in Memphis.

Abruzzo’s office has also issued over 100 complaints against Starbucks alleging numerous violations of federal law, including illegally shutting down unionized cafes and refusing to fairly negotiate at locations across the country.

Abruzzo said Wednesday that those complaints seem to have had some impact by reducing the number of alleged illegal statements lodged by local Starbucks managers. Still, she said, “I feel they’re a bad actor nationally.”

A recent assessment the company commissioned that attributed “missteps” in its response to unionization efforts largely to its lack of preparation for them was unconvincing, she said.

When the initial Starbucks union efforts emerged in and around Buffalo, New York, “they certainly felt they could squelch it,” she said. “But what they underestimated was that workers began to talk to one another all over the place.”>

<Former President Donald Trump never hesitates to take contradictory positions if it helps his cause.

He brags about appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned the right to abortion. But he won't say, while running again for president, what the federal or state governments should do now on that issue.

He complains that America's southern border is in crisis. But he used his political sway over some Republicans in Congress this week to kill bipartisan legislation on immigration reform and border security.

Does Trump believe in anything other than his own survival and success? The evidentiary record says no. But his proclivity to have things both ways just caught up to him in court.

A three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals called him out Tuesday for making one argument during his 2021 impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate and a completely antithetical argument now in his criminal case for trying to overthrow the 2020 presidential election after his loss to Joe Biden.

And I suspect the U.S. Supreme Court will notice that contradiction, which could be trouble for Trump as soon as Monday. I'll come back to that.

Does Trump prefer impeachment or the courts?

At issue – Trump's lawyers successfully defended him in the 2021 impeachment proceedings by insisting the Senate was the wrong venue to consider punishing him for trying to overturn the 2020 election. They claimed then that criminal courts were built for that.

A new team of Trump lawyers now argue in the courts that impeachment in the Senate was the correct venue all along to hold him accountable in the attempt to overturn the election, and that the former president is entitled to immunity now for what he did in office.

The judges, on page 34 of the 57-page ruling, cite Trump's impeachment lawyers to clearly define how he's trying to have it both ways on accountability.

Here was attorney David Schoen, defending Trump in the Senate on the first day of his second impeachment on Feb. 9, 2021: “We have a judicial process in this country. We have an investigative process in this country in which no former officeholder is immune. That is the process that should be running its course.”

And here was Trump lawyer Bruce Castor arguing in the Senate impeachment trial three days later: “There is only the text of the Constitution, which makes very clear that a former president is subject to criminal sanction after his presidency for any illegal acts he commits.”

There it is – word-for-word proof from Trump's own lawyers that he's vulnerable to prosecution for what he did while president, after the voters sent him home to sulk at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. One team of Trump lawyers was shooting down, ahead of time, the next team's tactics.

One of those lawyers, Castor, told me this week he doesn't see a problem with two teams of Trump lawyers making conflicting arguments.

"It is well recognized in the law that lawyers may take alternative positions depending on the circumstances," Castor said.

Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at The Brennan Center for Justice, agreed with the judges that the conflict is telling. She considers the arguments Trump's lawyers made in the criminal case "not really serious."

“Their arguments were designed in the moment to evade accountability,” she said.

And Weiser was encouraged that the judges emphasized calling the former president "citizen Trump" in what she called a "slam-dunk" ruling.

“He is not president,” she said. “He is not a king. He is citizen Trump and subject to prosecution just like the rest of us. There is nothing special about him that would avoid that fundamental notion.”

Of course Trump tries to burn it all down on social media

Trump responded Tuesday with a post on his website Truth Social, deriding this week's appellate court ruling as “Nation-destroying” while declaring that presidents “must have Full Immunity in order to properly function and do what has to be done for the good of our Country.”

He followed that less than half an hour later with a fundraising plea texted to supporters that said, “Moments ago federal judges just ruled that I have no presidential immunity.”

Trump trying to cash in on the news was as predictable as him contradicting his own defense....>

<....The appellate court doesn't buy Trump's schtick

The judges clearly didn't buy Trump's claim of immunity, citing “recent historical evidence” that other presidents – including Trump, via his impeachment lawyers – “have not believed themselves to be wholly immune from criminal liability for official acts during their Presidency.”

They noted that President Richard Nixon was vulnerable for criminal indictment after he resigned in the Watergate scandal, something his vice president, Gerald Ford, made clear when he took over and pardoned his old boss.

That 1974 pardon clearly said: “Nixon has become liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States,” which could upset the “tranquility” his resignation created.

And the judges cite President Bill Clinton agreeing in the closing hours of his second term to a five-year suspension of his law license and a $25,000 fine in return for a special counsel agreeing to not prosecute him for providing false testimony under oath.

What a rogues' gallery: Nixon, Clinton and Trump.

Nixon resigned to avoid being tossed out of office. Clinton took the humiliating deal on his way out the door. But Trump is still trying to get back to the White House. His campaign said Tuesday that he will appeal the ruling.

But where?

Does Trump try his luck with appeal to Supreme Court or does he stall?

The three-judge panel boxed him in, setting a Monday deadline to respond, with a clear eye to the long history of trying to stall legal cases. Trump could ask the full D.C. Circuit of 11 judges to reconsider the case, but that would end a delay in the case moving ahead at the trial level.

That goes against everything Trump really believes about civil and criminal courts. His core value has always been delay, delay, delay.

He could also start the process of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, chock full of justices he appointed, and the delay at the trial level will continue.

But he has no guarantee there. The justices could refuse to even hear the case.

That's what they did in February 2021 with a handful of remaining legal challenges to the 2020 election results, sending Trump and his allies away with no hearings.

And this cuts across everything Trump really believes about loyalty. His core value here is he deserves loyalty in all things, at all costs.

With the walls of this court case finally closing in on Trump, and November's election looming, he needs a save from a Supreme Court that might not have an interest in helping.

And his about-face defense tactics might have provided the justices with the perfect pretext to turn him away.>

< My account continues to be under assault: Hey Editor :

STOP deleting my legitimate posts.

I AM entitled to my opinion.

perfidious DID tell a lie - he put words in my mouth that I NEVER SAID.

I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DEFEND MYSELF since the monitors here allow that jackass to attack and misrepresent me non-stop and I get NO SUPPORT from CGs.

YOU need to have integrity and leave my posts alone! YOU have removed 3 of my posts on this page, and just as many on Hans Niemann's page. STOP thinking that you know better than I !!>

Not true--while your original screed was doubtless deleted long ago, not all went away:

<....It's called the World Open for a reason. Perf prefers Vermont where the going is a wee bit easier.>

<....perfidious DID tell a lie - he put words in my mouth that I NEVER SAID....>

Forget this one? With your everyday rages, not at all surprising that one should slip through.

<Did puffi and zanzibar have a falling out? The always angry editor aptly describes his long-time partner-in-wrongdoing. They've been running their racket against members for years, and it's worked! So many paying members have left the website, and the chess commentary is slow as insurance reimbursement.

(FTB has been busy watching the Chessable tournament on Chess.com.)>

Far more likely you've been stewing in choler during your latest 'break'.

Chris Murphy:

<Quick quiz: I’ll describe the conditions, and you guess whether I’m referring to the House or the Senate. Rank-and-file Republican members are increasingly frustrated with their leader, as GOP lawmakers reject their own proposals and prioritize Donald Trump’s interests above all.

It’s a bit of a trick question, of course, because I’m describing conditions in the House <and> Senate.

On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic architect of a bipartisan border plan, helped unveil the legislation that was four months in the making. On Monday, the Connecticut senator watched as Republicans scrambled to kill his handiwork. And so, a day later, Murphy appeared on the Senate floor, not only to defend the bill he believed in, but also to throw a few elbows at his GOP colleagues. “There used to be a difference between House Republicans and Senate Republicans,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “I used to explain this fact to my constituents all the time. I’d defend my Senate Republican colleagues; I’d explain how Trump doesn’t control the Senate Republican Caucus like he controls the House. I don’t think that’s true any longer. I think this conference is just as big a mess as the conference in the House.”

He concluded that this breakdown is “terrible” for a variety of reasons, including the fact that “the one group of Republicans that used to be able to exercise original thought and independent judgment now just seems to be another subsidiary of the Trump campaign.”

This might not be immediately obvious to those outside of Capitol Hill, but senators do not like being compared to House members. (If you want to get an ugly look, call a senator “congressman.” Lasers practically shoot from their eyes.) With this in mind, Murphy’s assessment was brutal.

It was also true. The Washington Post’s Paul Kane explained:

GOP senators have long presented themselves as stately and mature. The lower chamber can have their rambunctious members and chaotic fights, but in the upper chamber, members of the World’s Most Deliberative Body recognize the importance of serious policymaking.

I hope Senate Republicans enjoyed that reputation, because they’ve ruined it.>

<Donald Trump's lawyer has lashed out at the suggestions that a potential key witness in the former president's falsifying business records case may have committed perjury while testifying in the Republican's civil fraud trial.

Attorney Christopher Kise accused the claims made about former longtime Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg as being "much ado about nothing" and an attempt to create a "media frenzy" ahead of Trump's criminal trial where he has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges in relation to hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Weisselberg was recently reported by The New York Times to have been negotiating with a deal with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office where he would plead guilty to perjury for allegedly lying under oath in October while taking the stand in the Trump's civil case. The former president and Weisselberg are accused in New York Attorney General Letitia James' fraud lawsuit of inflating the value of the former president's properties and assets in financial statements for years.

In response, Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing Trump's civil fraud trial, wrote to Trump's lawyers and asked them if they know if Weisselberg is "admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom" during the civil trial proceedings.

Alina Habba, the lawyer representing Weisselberg in the civil fraud case, said she has no information to share as she does not represent him in criminal matters. Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel in James' office, also said his team was not involved in Weisselberg's reported negotiations with the Manhattan district attorney's office but that Weisselberg should be "held to account fully for his actions."

Kise hit out at the suggestions that Weisselberg should be considered an unreliable witness in Trump's upcoming falsifying business records criminal trial in New York, which is currently scheduled to begin in March, over the reports he could plead guilty to perjury in the fraud case.

Kise added that he hopes the court will "set aside manufactured news stories" ahead of the criminal trial.

"This latest much ado about nothing reveals more desperation coupled with a desire to do anything to shift the focus away from [former Trump attorney] Michael Cohen, who admitted to perjury right in front of the Judge at trial," Kise said in a statement to Newsweek.

"Court decisions are supposed to be made based on the evidence at trial, not on media speculation. But realizing they have no actual evidence to support their relentless and unjustifiable pursuit of President Trump, Alvin Bragg and Letitia James have now conspired together to create a media frenzy and use it as support for their claims."

Trump's lawyers have frequently accused Cohen of lying under oath during the civil fraud trial after backtracking under cross-examination from his earlier testimony in which he said Trump specifically told him to increase the value of assets in financial statements.

Weisselberg stopped testifying in October 2023 after a Forbes article alleged he lied under oath while discussing the valuation of the former president's luxury triplex apartment in Manhattan's Trump Tower, which Trump is accused of valuing at $327 million based on claims it was 30,000 square feet in size when it is only 10,996 square feet.

The article suggested that a review of old emails and notes show that Weisselberg allegedly played a "key role in trying to convince Forbes" that the apartment was worth more than it really was for years, despite him claiming in court he never thought about the valuation of the property.

Weisselberg's criminal attorney has been contacted for comment via email.

In her response to Engoron's request for information, Habba accused The New York Times report of Weisselberg's plea deal of being "inadmissible and unsubstantiated" which must not influence the judges [sic] perception of Weisselberg's credibility as a witness, or otherwise affect the outcome of the case.

"We urge you to render your decision based solely on the evidence now before you," Habba wrote.

Engoron said he hopes to make a decision on Trump's punishment in the civil fraud case, which could see Trump fined hundreds of millions of dollars and banned from doing business in New York, by mid-February.>

<Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, slammed GOP leadership as a "total embarrassment" after the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan bill aimed at addressing the U.S.-Mexico border amid a rise in migrant arrivals.

The Senate voted down the bipartisan legislation, which would also have allocated funds to U.S. allies such as Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine on Wednesday evening by a vote of 49-50. The vote was largely on party lines, with five Democrats opposing the bill and four Republicans supporting it, but added to questions about whether Congress would be able to act on immigration reform and border security amid deep divisions over the issue.

Conservative Republican senators moved to tank the bill after it was unveiled over the weekend, arguing it did not go far enough to secure the southern border and made too many concessions to Democrats, who control the Senate. GOP leadership is now facing backlash from many conservatives over the legislation.

Hawley, a conservative who voted against the bill, lashed out at leadership in remarks to Punchbowl News.

"Oh, I think Republican leadership has shown they're a well-oiled machine. They just do great. Couldn't be improved upon. Absolutely have it all together. Very impressive. No, it's a total embarrassment," he said.

The outlet noted that Hawley's remarks were "dripping with sarcasm."

Hawley earlier spoke out against the bill, describing it as a "huge middle finger to working people" in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

GOP Leadership Faces MAGA Rebellion

Hawley is not the first Republican senator to raise concerns about the state of the party's leadership.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz said earlier in the week that he believes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's time in leadership should come to an end. When asked by a reporter if it is time for McConnell to step down, Cruz said "I think it is."

Utah Senator Mike Lee described the bill as "disqualifying" in a post on X.

"Senate GOP leadership screwed this up—and screwed us. Even while refusing to let us see the bill they claimed to be negotiating on our behalf—for MONTHS—they were never in doubt, insisting we'd be dumb and even unpatriotic NOT to support it. This is a disqualifying betrayal," Lee wrote on Sunday.

Passing immigration legislation has proven to be a difficult task due to the divided nature of the federal government. While Democrats have the White House and hold a majority in the Senate, Republicans currently control the House of Representatives, meaning any bill would have to appease members from both major political parties.

The bill addressed key concerns faced at the southern border, increased the ICE detention capacity from 34,000 to 50,000 and allocated $20 billion to immigration enforcement. It also included $14 billion in aid to Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine, $4.83 billion to Indo-Pacific nations and $10 billion in humanitarian funding for Ukraine, Gaza and the West Bank.

Amid the chaos, Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican who voted in support of the bill, warned that politics has become "the art of the impossible" in remarks to reporters Wednesday.>

<Judge Arthur Engoron issued a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump's attorneys in a new letter Thursday.

Engoron is overseeing Trump's civil fraud trial, which stems from a lawsuit filed by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. She alleges that Trump and top executives at his family company, 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. James is asking the judge to impose a roughly $370 million penalty and a halt to Trump doing business in the state.

Engoron has not yet made his final ruling in the nonjury trial, which is expected this month. The former president maintains his innocence in the case and has accused James of targeting him for political purposes.

The trial wrapped up in January, but the case was shaken up by a February 1 report from The New York Times that Allen Weisselberg, former Trump Organization chief financial officer, is in negotiations to plead guilty to perjury during the civil trial. Following the report, Engoron reached out to Trump's attorneys, asking them to detail anything they might know about the report and noting he does not want to "ignore anything in a case of this magnitude."

Trump attorney Clifford Robert pushed back against the request, describing it as "unprecedented, inappropriate and troubling."

Robert wrote that the case is closed and any concerns about Weisselberg's testimony should have been raised "prior to the close of evidence." He also argued that the request "calls into question the impartiality of the Court" and that Engoron lacks legal authority to take judicial notice of news articles.

Robert pointed to allegations that Trump's ex-attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against the former president, also committed perjury during the trial. The allegations stemmed from Representatives Elise Stefanik and Michael Turner, both Republicans, who said Cohen's testimony does not line up with what he told lawmakers under oath in 2019.

"It is inconceivable that the Court would not apply falsus in uno to Mr. Cohen's testimony, while musing on its applicability based on a speculative news story," Robert wrote, referring to the legal principle that someone who falsely testifies about one matter is deemed not credible.

On Thursday, Engoron issued a response to Robert, writing that he was not "seeking to initiate a wide-ranging debate with counsel" with his initial request.

"You and your co-counsel have been questioning my impartiality since the early days of this case, presumably because I sometimes rule against your clients. That whole approach is getting old," the judge wrote.

Engoron does not plan to consider judicial notice or falsus in uno in regard to Weisselberg as a result of the Times article, he wrote, adding that any invocation would be based only on a guilty plea. He also criticized Robert for bringing up Cohen's testimony, writing that it is "out of bounds."

"I take seriously my obligation to find the facts and determine the truth," he said. "To that end, I find it appropriate to have reached out to counsel for Mr. Weisselberg, who is a defendant in this case, to inquire as to her knowledge of this serious allegation."

Responding to Engoron's letter in a statement, Robert told Newsweek, "I have always acted responsibly and will continue to properly advance my clients' interests."

Engoron's letter was described as "scathing" by Courthouse News reporter Erik Uebelacker in a post to X (formerly Twitter).

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek on Thursday that he is not surprised Engoron is upset, as Trump's attorneys have been "aggressive throughout the trial."

"Some of this is just advocacy, but Trump's legal team knows they're going to lose, and probably badly, so they're doing everything they can to create a record on appeal," he said.

Rahmani added that Engoron is in the "strange position" of having to decide what evidence counts, as the judge in the case, and how to weigh that evidence, as the finder of fact.>

<A handful of Republican lawmakers are calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked to remove President Joe Biden from office following the release of the special counsel’s report Thursday that highlighted Biden’s alleged memory issues and accused him of wrongly retaining classified materials while a private citizen, but stopped short of criminal charges.

Republican Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) posted separately on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked—an amendment that would allow for Biden’s cabinet to remove him from office if the vice president and a majority determine he is unfit to serve.

Separately, Reps. Mary Miller (Ill.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) and Mike Collins (Ga.) suggested invoking the 25th Amendment, with Miller saying if “he won’t resign, the Cabinet must invoke the 25th Amendment,” after the special counsel’s report found “he could not remember basic facts about his life.” Numerous other high-profile right-wing figures, like Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, radio show host Mark Levin and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also suggested invoking the 25th Amendment.

There is no sign Biden’s cabinet is considering invoking the 25th Amendment. White House counsel Richard Sauber said the president and his administration is “pleased” the investigation is over but criticized what he called “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments” included in the report.

On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur released the Justice Department's report that found the president “willfully” retained classified materials while a private citizen. In the report, Hur was critical of Biden’s memory and cited numerous examples of Biden forgetting certain facts. For example, the former president could not recall what years he was vice president, according to the report. That memory issue, along with other findings, led the special counsel not to charge Biden criminally, in part because he believed Biden’s memory problems would have made it difficult to convince a jury he intentionally engaged in wrongdoing.

The calls for invoking the 25th Amendment are among mounting criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, about Biden’s mental well-being given the report’s findings. But the calls are unlikely to be more than partisan chatter as invoking the 25th Amendment would require the support of the vice president and of Biden’s Democratic cabinet. The group would have to agree he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” according to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. From there it’s an even steeper uphill battle for Biden to be removed from office. Two-thirds majorities of both chambers would then have to vote and approve of stripping the president of his powers.

Similar calls were made for the 25th Amendment to be invoked when Trump was in office, but those calls came from within the former president’s administration. In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, there were reports that members of the Trump administration were considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.>

<What House Republicans had hoped to do on Tuesday evening was to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, sending a message to the Biden administration (and general election voters) about how seriously they took the border. The caucus had been building to this for months, with multiple hearings and countless media interviews centered on Mayorkas and his purported mishandling of his position.

Then it was time for the House to consider the articles of impeachment — and Republicans didn’t have the votes. A handful of defections from within the party and bad counting on the part of Republican leaders left the caucus scrambling; Rep. Blake D. Moore (R-Utah) had to flip his vote so that his party would be able to bring the impeachment effort to another vote in the future.

It was a debacle. And it was entirely in keeping with the House Republican majority since January 2023.

There are several reasons that the Republican caucus has proved unusually incapable of getting things done. But before we evaluate those reasons, let’s validate that assertion of incapability. Data from GovTrack indicates that the 118th Congress has enacted about 7 percent of the legislation that congresses have enacted on average since the 93rd, back in 1973 and 1974.

In fairness, this Congress is not yet over. The House and the Senate have another 10 months or so to pass legislation. But even if Congress enacts twice as much legislation over the rest of the session as it has since January 2023, the 118th Congress will still end with only a third of the number of laws enacted during the 117th.

So why is this happening? Setting aside that the Senate is controlled by Democrats — lowering the likelihood that both chambers will pass agreed-upon legislation — there are three central challenges.

The first is that the Republican caucus has that slim majority. There are seven more Republicans than Democrats, meaning that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can only lose three votes without losing his majority. On Mayorkas, he lost those three votes — and he was missing House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.).

But that overlaps with the second reason: Republican legislators are more likely to defect from the party majority.

To measure this, I took data on every roll-call vote (that is, a vote in which legislators recorded their choice) since the 108th Congress. On each vote, a plurality of each party’s caucus supported one position and, usually, some members disagreed. We can generate a percentage as follows: If there are 10 Republicans and nine vote for the caucus’s majority position, that means a 90 percent agreement within the party.

Looking at that data, you can see that the average support from the Republican caucus for the majority position has been less than 90 percent since the 116th Congress in 2019 and 2020. (This is indicated by the black lines on the chart below.) Among the Democrats, there’s much more consensus: On average, the party’s caucus has had 96 percent of its votes cast with the majority position over that same period.

You can also see how often the Republican caucus has seen even larger defections from the majority with the gray-shaded sections. In the 118th Congress, nearly 9 in 10 roll-call votes for the Democrats have had at least 90 percent of the caucus on board. For the Republicans, only a bit over half have had that level of unity.

The outlier here is actually the Democrats, not the Republicans. Party caucuses averaged 89 percent agreement in votes from the 108th to 115th caucuses — not much higher than where the Republicans are now. But the Democrats’ unanimity makes it more important for Republicans to be similarly unified, which they aren’t.

This is partly because there are at least two distinct segments of the Republican caucus, one on the far-right and one on the near-right. This has been most apparent in the caucus’s multiple efforts to elect a speaker; the more-extreme segment was more likely to oppose the candidacy of Kevin McCarthy in January 2023 and the less-extreme part more likely to oppose the candidacy of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) last fall.

This brings us to the third reason that House Republicans are having so much trouble: They’re under pressure, especially from the far right, to take more difficult votes.

The Mayorkas impeachment is a good example. It’s an extreme response to immigration issues that built up a head of steam in the right-wing media, a world to which the caucus’s right-most fringe is particularly sensitive. So the articles of impeachment came forward — and less-extreme legislators skeptical of the idea balked.

None of these factors means that the caucus can’t get anything done. After all, they came within Scalise’s vote of impeaching Mayorkas. They still may.

<Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his request to the judge overseeing his Georgia election interference case to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and dismiss the indictment against him, saying that her "egregious misconduct demands" it.

The filing refers specifically to comments Willis made during a church speech in early January after the misconduct allegations were first lodged against her, during which she suggested the accusations were racially motivated.

Trump has accused her of violating her office's ethics requirements with what he called "improper extrajudicial public comments."

Trump's filing came in response to Willis' court filing last week in which top prosecutor Nathan Wade admitted to the two of them having a "personal relationship" -- but in which Willis flatly denied allegations that she benefitted financially from the arrangement or that she violated conduct rules with her statements at the church.

"Defendant Trump's motion raising public comments made by District Attorney Willis that neither reference this case nor these defendants as a basis for disqualification is transparently meritless," Willis said in her filing last week.

Trump's filing on Wednesday pushed back on Willis' claim that the church statements didn't reference the case.

"Nothing could be further from the truth," said the filing by Trump attorney, Steve Sadow. "Stated succinctly, the DA's position in its filed response is preposterous and disingenuous at best, and an outright lie at worst. It is an after-the-fact futile attempt to mislead this court."

Willis, addressing the congregation last month at the Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a service to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, said, "I appointed three special counselors. It's my right to do. Paid them all the same hourly rate." Of the three, Willis said, "I hired one Black man."

"They only attack one," she said. "Isn't it them playing the race card when they only question one?"

Trump's filing claimed Willis' conduct in making those comments "was indeed egregious" and "undeniably unethical."

As such, Trump renewed his call for Willis to be disqualified and for his election interference indictment to be dismissed, saying that Willis had "made a calculated and purposeful choice here to disregard her special ethical responsibilities as a prosecutor because she conceived it was in her own best interest to do so."

"The State knows better," the filing said. "The State knows that improper extrajudicial public comments by a prosecutor in the State of Georgia may be dealt with by disqualification."

The filing from Trump's attorney also appeared to reference the recent subpoena sent to Willis for her to testify at the upcoming Feb. 15 evidentiary hearing on the matter, saying he can "only hope" that at the hearing "the DA will be required to explain" the church comments "in testimony under oath," and "who else she could have been referring to in them."

Willis, in her filing last week, asked Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee to effectively cancel the Feb. 15 hearing, claiming that "no further factual development is necessary."

On Wednesday, she filed additional motions seeking to quash subpoenas that had been issued to her, Wade, and seven other members of her office.

She argued in her filing that there is "no factual basis" that "could reasonably justify requiring" her and a number of her employees to become witnesses in the case, and accused election case defendant Michael Roman, who issued the subpoenas, of "an attempt to conduct discovery in a (rather belated) effort to support reckless accusations."

The filing further claimed that the investigators in her office who were subpoenaed have "no knowledge at all" of the issues raised in Roman's motion alleging misconduct.

The filing also sought to quash a subpoena to Wade's former law partner, who representing him in his divorce proceeding, arguing that he is protected by attorney-client privilege.

It also sought to quash a subpoena to Synovus Bank for Wade's financial records, saying that Roman "cannot possibly justify such a fishing expedition."

On Thursday, Wade himself also filed a request to quash that subpoena, saying, "The Court's job is not to help Roman and his attorney sift through the personal records of the prosecuting attorney in hopes of finding something they could spin in salaciousness for a tabloid."

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in August to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.

<....Typically, we get a lame comment introduction poking fun at the person's name by a mean-spirited poster....>

<....Get some rest tonight, stoned. The sun will probably come up tomorrow -- Friday! -- if he doesn't drink and gamble all night again.>

All this obsession over '50,000 posts'.

<[Event "Cambridge Invitational"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1984.12.16"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "8"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shmulevich, Mark"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "B53"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.Bxc6 Bxc6 7.c4 Nf6 8.Nc3 e6 9.Bg5 Be7 10.0-0 0-0 11.Rfe1 a6 12.Rad1 Qc7 13.Bxf6 gxf6 14.Re3 Kh8 15.Nh4 Rg8 16.Nd5 Qd8 17.Nxe7 Qxe7 18.Qxd6 Qxd6 19.Rxd6 Rg4 20.g3 Rxe4 21.Rxe4 Bxe4 22.Ng2 Rc8 23.Ne3 Kg7 24.Kf1 Bf3 25.b4 Kf8 26.Ke1 Ke7 27.c5 a5 28.a3 axb4 29.axb4 Ra8 30.Nc4 Ra1+ 31.Kd2 Bd5 32.Na5 Ra2+ 33.Ke3 Ra3+ 34.Kd4 Ra2 35.Rb6 Rxf2 36.Nxb7 Rxh2 37.c6 Rc2 38.Nc5 Kd6 39.Kd3 Rc1 40.Rb7 e5 41.Ra7 Kxc6 42.Nd7 Rf1 43.Nxf6 Be6 44.Nxh7 Rf3+ 45.Ke4 Rxg3 46.Kxe5 Rg7 47.Nf6 Rg5+ 48.Kd4 Rb5 49.Kc3 Rf5 50.Ne4 Rf3+ 51.Kd4 Rb3 52.Ra6+ Kc7 53.Kc5 Kb7 1/2-1/2>

<[Event "Au Bon Pain Invitational"] [Site "Cambridge Mass"]
[Date "1984.09.09"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Fang, Joseph"]
[Black "Shaw, Alan"]
[ECO "E30"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Fly By Knight"] [Site "Providence RI"]
[Date "1984.12.09"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "2.2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Birt, Raymond"]
[ECO "D69"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]