<The backlash over former president Donald Trump’s pre-Thanksgiving meal with antisemitic rapper Kanye West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes has led the twice-impeached ex-president’s aides to revive a 2020-era measure used to keep him from embarrassing himself while Mr Trump is reportedly blaming the disgraced musician for the negative press.

According to a source who spoke to NBC News, Mr Trump has directed his anger at Mr West, who just two years ago waged a third-party presidential campaign aimed at siphoning votes off from Joe Biden to help the then-president win reelection.

“He tried to f*** me. He’s crazy. He can’t beat me,” the ex-president said, referring to Mr West’s stated intention to mount another campaign for the presidency with an eye towards the 2024 general election.

According to reports, it was Mr West who brought Mr Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist who has long been one of Mr Trump’s most vocal supporters, to the ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago club last week.

NBC reported that the dinner was initially supposed to be a two-man affair for Mr Trump to sit down with his friend in the wake of the Mr West’s public expulsion by multiple business partners who no longer wanted to be associated with him following a series of racist and antisemitic remarks on social media and elsewhere.

Instead, Mr West (who now legally goes by the mononym “Ye”) brought a trio of guests including Mr Fuentes, an ex-campaign aide Karen Giorno, and online troll, former Breitbart News staffer Milo Yiannopoulos.

In response to the nearly universal and bipartisan outrage from the news that Mr Trump broke bread with the controversial figures, aides to Mr Trump are making arrangements to keep at least one staffer from his nascent presidential campaign at his side at nearly all times.

The decision revives a similar arrangement that was in place during his presidency to keep him from coming across people who could bring political headaches for him.

While access to Mr Trump was tightly controlled during his White House years thanks to strict security protocols, at his Mar-a-Lago estate he is known to walk freely about and interact with members who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for the privilege.>

<To hear some tell it, a Supreme Court case set for argument on Dec. 7 could spell the end of democracy in the United States. If the Republicans who brought the case, Moore v. Harper, prevail, state legislatures will effectively be free to override the votes of their citizens in presidential elections, the doomsayers predict. That might allow a future presidential candidate to undo an election, much as Donald Trump attempted, but failed, to do in 2020.

The Atlantic warned that the "Court's right-wing supermajority is poised to let state lawmakers overturn voters' choice in presidential elections." The Guardian opined that a ruling in favor of the GOP would mean that "whether Republicans win or lose elections via the popular vote will not matter because they will be able to maintain power regardless." And Slate called Moore v. Harper "the Supreme Court case that could upend democracy."

Those fears are overblown. They ignore other legal protections that would prevent the theft of a presidential election. A state legislature can in fact choose which electors to pick, legal scholars generally agree, as those bodies routinely did in the early days of the republic. But a legislature has the power to decide to handle a vote that way only before citizens begin casting ballots in a given election.

"No matter what the Court decides" in Moore v. Harper, as New York University law professor Richard Pildes has put it, "it would still not mean state legislatures could choose simply to ignore the popular vote in their state and appoint presidential electors themselves after the election." Federal law, for example, requires states to choose their electors on Election Day. And several federal courts have held that after-the-fact changes raise questions of due process and equal protection. A state legislature can't simply swoop in after the voting and rewrite the rules for a completed election because it didn't like the outcome.

Still, Moore v. Harper has major implications for other aspects of elections, including gerrymandering. The case arises from a fight over redistricting by the Republicans who control both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly. This year, the state's Supreme Court, voting in line with its 4-3 Democratic majority, ruled that the legislature's congressional district map was a partisan gerrymander that violated the North Carolina Constitution. Ordinarily, that would be the end of the matter. Federal courts typically can't second-guess a state court's interpretation of its own laws....>

<House Minority Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy in an angry letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) warned the Chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack that his role will end on January 3 and it is “imperative that all information collected be preserved.” The California Republican congressman had a dramatically different position on Donald Trump‘s unlawful retention of well over ten thousand items from the White House, including at least 300 documents with classified markings, including some classified at the highest levels.

McCarthy, who is running to be Speaker of the House but is facing strong opposition from some of the GOP caucus, nevertheless is acting as if he will wield the gavel.

His letter, angry and accusatory in tone, also strongly suggests Republicans will hold their own hearings on the January 6 attack on the Capitol and on democracy, but with a vastly different focus.

“The American people chose Republicans to lead the 118th Congress,” McCarthy’s letter begins. “On January 3, 2023, your work as Chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will come to an end,” McCarthy told Thompson in his letter, which was reported on by CBS News.

“For those reasons, I remind you and your staff on the Committee to preserve all records collected and transcripts of testimony taken during your investigation in accordance with House Rule VII. As the Chairman, regardless of who may be directing the work of the Committee, you are responsible for the work done by its members and staff.”

Some have suggested that Thompson could transfer some or all of the Committee’s work product – all transcripts and other evidence – to the Senate.

McCarthy continued with his angry attack.

“It is clear based on recent news reports that even your own members and staff of the Committee have no visibility into the totality of the investigation. Some reports suggest that entire swaths of findings will be left out of the Committee’s final report. You have spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayers’ dollars conducting this investigation.”

House Republicans, including McCarthy, spent million dollars on six Benghazi investigations, the last one of which McCarthy admitted was designed to harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping,” McCarthy bragged in 2015.

Unlike his defense of ex-president Donald Trump unlawfully removing and retaining at Mar-a-Lago approximately 13,000 items belonging to the National Archives from the White House, McCarthy warned Thompson the Committee’s work does not belong to the Chairman.

“It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” McCarthy wrote. “The official Congressional Records do not belong to you or any member, but to the American people, and they are owed all of the information you gathered – not merely the information that comports with your political agenda.”

That’s actually false.

The Committee has undoubtedly uncovered government secrets, including national security information, classified information, and information, for example, the Secret Service needs to keep secret to allow it to continue to secure its protectees. It also has entered into agreements with witnesses that prevent it from releasing those documents, transcripts, and other evidence to the public....>

More to come....

<....Politico’s senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney says, “Kevin McCarthy’s letter demanding that the Jan. 6 committee preserve its records is mostly nonsense because the committee is planning to release all but a few of its transcripts.”

McCarthy continued, warning: “Although your Committee’s public hearings did not focus on why the Capitol complex was not secure on January 6, 2021, the Republican majority in the 118th Congress will hold hearings that do so.”

He then served up what some might say is a threat.

“The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts and to be able to view the transcripts with an eye toward encouraged enforcement of 18 USC 1001.”

18 U.S. Code § 1001 is the federal statute that makes it a crime to knowingly make false statements.

McCarthy had a very different take when the U.S. Dept. of Justice executed a legal search warrant of Donald Trump’s Florida residence and resort, Mar-a-Lago, to retrieve government-owned materials, including classified documents.

<A three-judge panel on a federal appeals court on Thursday struck down the special master that was hired to oversee the United States Department of Justice's investigation into the trove of top-secret documents that former President Donald Trump took from the White House before leaving office.

In September, Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida – whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2020 – tapped Senior Judge Raymond Dearie of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York to determine the classification status of tens of thousands of pages that Trump had no legal right, or authority, to remove from the White House.

The materials, which contained highly classified information pertaining to a foreign power's nuclear capabilities, were seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a search warrant execution at Trump's Palm Beach, Florida Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8th.

Trump, whom the Justice Department suspects violated the Espionage Act, has vigorously fought the FBI's actions as well as the warrant that it lawfully obtained, arguing that the documents were his. But Trump also maintained that he declassified them through telepathy. His attorneys, meanwhile, have failed in numerous attempts to prove their case – that Trump, as an ex-commander in chief – is shielded by immunity and executive privilege.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals flatly rejected that claim.

"In considering these arguments, we are faced with a choice: apply our usual test; drastically expand the availability of equitable jurisdiction for every subject of a search warrant; or carve out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents,” the court said in its opinion as reported by The Washington Post. “We choose the first option. So the case must be dismissed.”

The Post highlighted that "Judge William H. Pryor, the former attorney general of Alabama, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush. The other two judges on the panel, Andrew L. Brasher and Britt C. Grant, are Trump nominees. They also were on the three-judge panel that ruled against Trump earlier this fall on limited aspects of the special master appointment, restoring access for criminal investigators to the 103 documents with classified markings."

The ruling was nonetheless unambiguous.

"The law is clear. We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant," the judges said, per Reuters. "Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so."

This is a devastating blow to Trump. As former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner pointed out in The Daily Beast on Monday, "if the 11th Circuit rules against Trump, I would expect an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, which would be quickly denied. As soon as that happens, I expect that newly appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team will indict former President Trump on multiple counts."

Epner explained that Trump's legal woes are rapidly accumulating.

"Although Trump has tried to keep this case in the Southern District of Florida (where Republicans recently routed Democrats in statewide elections), I expect that the indictment would be issued from the District Court for the District of Columbia," he wrote. "The crimes related to the removal and retention of national security documents in violation of the Espionage Act were arguably committed when Trump removed them from the White House, making DC a possible venue for an indictment on those charges."

Trump, Epner noted, "would almost certainly fear a trial in front of a Washington, D.C., jury even more than he would fear a trial in front of a South Florida jury. Trump received only 5 percent of the vote in the District in 2020, by far his lowest total anywhere. By contrast, he won Florida in 2020.">

<The National Hockey League showed its support for trans women last week, and now Tucker Carlson is suggesting all professional sports are a vessel for left-wing “forces” to brainwash the masses.

Carlson slipped the ridiculous new conspiracy theory into a Fox News segment Wednesday bashing the league after it supported a draft tournament in Wisconsin earlier this month comprised entirely of transgender and nonbinary players. In response to a critical tweet, the NHL’s Twitter account replied: “Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Nonbinary identity is real.”

Apparently very miffed about this, the Fox News host bashed the NHL and professional sports in general as mouthpieces for so-called “woke” ideologies.

“So clearly political forces hijack professional sports as a way to brainwash the young men who watch professional sports,” he said. “That’s, of course, the entire point of it. It’s strategic. But why does nobody push back?”

Earlier in the segment, Carlson noted that the NHL has one of the most conservative fanbases of all major American professional sports, “so it’s a little weird ... that the NHL has decided to push woke propaganda on its fans.” By “woke propaganda,” he was referring to the league’s efforts to increase diversity among its employees and fans.

The NHL released results earlier this year of its first internal demographic study of its staff and 32 teams. Unsurprisingly, the report found that its workforce was made up overwhelmingly of white men: Its workforce is 83.6% white and 62% male. On the ice, more than 90% of players and nearly all coaches and officials are white. The league, eager to diversify its fanbase and increase its audience, has said the report will serve as a baseline so they can develop strategies to improve representation internally. Minority players have long called out systemic racism issues and complained that the league has been slow to adapt.>

<fredthejackal: Rdb - I'm well beyond the average free loading poster. I typically posted a dozen posts a day on all kinds of pages....>

Except, of course, when you go into a frenzy and post far more than that--though many may have been deleted by now due to their content.

<....I don't follow anyone around....>

An outright lie; you have very often done so.

<....They come looking for me. I'm trolled 24-7 by vultures. My posts are very popular with the trolls....>

Wot, you have arrogated the inalienable right to constantly lie about others, then expect them to tolerate it? Guess again, sucka!

<....Your problem is that you read one disagreeable post and make assumptions. When you assume, you make an ass out of you and your pal. Perhaps you should read all my posts in one day before you cast judgement. Experience the variety for yourself....>

A potpourri of corny jokes, lists of opening names and codes, with a dash of 'analysis', which manages to be simultaneously patronising and shallow, thrown in for good measure?

Spare us all, will ya?

<....Of course, that is hard to do now that pete and missy are deleting my posts allowing ignorance to reign. They continue to ruin the website by letting trash rule.>

Sam as all the other Far Right types here, the only type of free speech you desire is the controlled version, in which anyone not as yourself will find no succour.

Another sterling example of <fredthestalker>, hard at work with that trademark insight:

<It's a legitimate question, stalker. Once again, you contribute absolutely nothing with your chronic bowl movements.>

<Rdb....My apologies , <fredthebear>

<Infowars founder and host Alex Jones, who has been ordered by courts to pay nearly $1.5 billion to victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre, has filed for bankruptcy.

Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. In the filing, Jones said he owes 50 to 99 creditors; he said his assets amount to between $1 million and $10 million, and his estimated liabilities are between $1 billion and $10 billion.

A Connecticut jury in October ordered Jones to pay $965 million to compensate 15 plaintiffs who suffered from his spreading of conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Twenty first graders and six educators were killed in that shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012. Last month, a judge awarded the families an additional $473 million in punitive damages and attorney fees.

Jones' filing comes a day after the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, made several antisemitic comments during an interview with Jones.

Why does Alex Jones owe these judgments?

Jones and his Infowars media site portrayed the mass shooting as staged as part of a government conspiracy to crack down on gun possession. Several families sued Jones, saying that he had defamed them and that his lies led to threats and harassment from Jones' followers.

One parent testified that conspiracy theorists urinated on his 7-year-old son’s grave and threatened to dig up the coffin.

Later, Jones said in a video on the site that the Sandy Hook lawsuits were part of a campaign by "the left in this country to weaponize the legal system."

In addition to the Connecticut court action, a Texas jury earlier this year awarded the parents of a child killed in the shooting $49 million in damages.

During that trial, an economist hired by the plaintiffs testified that Jones and Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, were worth up to $270 million and that records showed Jones withdrew $62 million for himself in 2021.

What does this mean for the Sandy Hook families?

For now, court action has come to a halt in the Connecticut case. A judge canceled a hearing scheduled for Friday on the Sandy Hook families’ request to get payment for damages from Jones' assets.

But Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut case, doesn't think Jones' bankruptcy filing will work. “The bankruptcy system does not protect anyone who engages in intentional and egregious attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did," Mattei said in a statement. "The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”

Later this year, Jones is expected to face another trial in a case filed by Sandy Hook parents.

What else was in Jones bankruptcy filing?

The filing lists families of Sandy Hook victims as creditors, including Robert Parker, whose daughter Emilie Parker, 6, died in the massacre and who is owed $120 million, according to the filing.

Also owed $90 million is William Aldenberg, an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and was accused by Jones of being a crisis actor.>

<Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) made national headlines in April when he signed a bill repealing the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district on the Walt Disney Company’s Central Florida property. But now that the governor has won re-election, Disney has brought back a former CEO — and the legal reality loomed ready to inflict some staggeringly bad consequences — DeSantis is reportedly backing down.

The bill repealing RCID effective June 1, 2023 was sponsored by State Rep. Randy Fine (R) and State Sen. Jennifer Bradley (R), who did not communicate with anyone at Disney, RCID, or any of the county governments that would be affected before passing this ill-conceived law.

The Republicans backing the move openly admitted they were doing so in retaliation for former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s criticism of the Parental Rights in Education bill (deemed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics), specifically regarding a memo Chapek sent to Disney employees vocally objecting to the bill after its passage. Chapek also hit the pause button on the Mouse making any political contributions and a plan to move thousands of employees from Palo Alto, California to a new facility being built in Lake Nona (a region in the southeast area of Orlando).

“The bill essentially sets up a system of legislative blackmail,” I wrote back in April, by timing the repeal to take effect after the 2022 midterm elections and 2023 regular legislative session, sending a message to Disney to sit down and shut up (and get out their campaign checkbook again).

Numerous legal experts decried the RCID repeal bill as a violation of the First Amendment for its openly retaliatory intent, and multiple Florida statutes seem to clearly prohibit the government from repealing RCID in this manner, specifically one granting a protection for RCID’s bond holders. (As an added complication, if RCID is repealed, its over $1 billion bond debt would then legally become the debt of Orange and Osceola County taxpayers, forcing an increase in property taxes by thousands of dollars for every household).

If the legal ramifications were not good enough reason to not go through with this repeal, the practical nature of what exactly RCID is and how it functions should have been sufficient to dissuade DeSantis and the GOP-controlled legislature from this rash action.

As I reported previously, RCID was created by the Florida Legislature in 1967 because when Walt Disney was looking to build his next theme park, the area was mostly rural farmland, citrus groves, and swamps. Disney wanted to avoid the problems faced by Disneyland in California with competing development restricting their expansion, so the company bought a huge parcel southwest of Orlando, stretching over Orange and Osceola Counties. Disney currently has roughly 25,000 acres (39 square miles), allowing them to build and expand their theme parks, restaurants, hotels, and other facilities while maintaining a large green space buffer.

Back in the 1960s, the counties did not have the resources or staff to manage the massive development needed by Disney, and the creation of RCID was supported by both local and state government officials. That is still the status today; the county elected officials and employees I interviewed for my articles were adamant that they did not want to take over RCID and expressed grave concerns about the legal and financial burdens it would impose with their budgets still struggling after reduced revenues during the pandemic.

Contrary to a common misperception, RCID is not a tax break for Disney.

In addition to collecting and remitting sales taxes to the state (including the percentage that goes to each county) and Tourist Development Taxes from hotel guests, Disney pays property taxes to Orange and Osceola County at the same millage rate as all other county taxpayers (totaling nearly $300 million from 2015 to 2020). The Florida Constitution does not allow taxpayers within a county to be treated differently unless those taxpayers consent to the creation of a special taxing district to levy additional taxes on top of the regular county property taxes.

And that’s exactly what RCID has been doing for over 50 years. Disney pays additional taxes to RCID (at the highest millage rate in the state) to cover expenditures for government-type functions like building permitting, fire and emergency medical services, a power plant, water and waste treatment, trash and recycling, and construction and maintenance of roadways and waterways.

The annual budget for fiscal year 2022 is more than $160 million, and RCID uses those funds to maintain a higher standard for these various functions than any local, state, or federal government entity would be able to accomplish....>

<....As one example, the House of Mouse has immaculately maintained roadways throughout their property; Orlando locals joke about trying to get Disney to seize control over the seemingly unending construction on I-4. The “EPCOT Codes,” Disney’s proprietary building codes, are extremely detailed and state-of-the-art, offering the highest level of hurricane protection and other safety measures. Three contractors who have done work at Disney whom I’ve interviewed for research on RCID (independently; they don’t know each other) called the EPCOT Codes “a pain in the a**,” but all acknowledged these demanding standards achieved a top level of safety, aesthetics, and improved guest experiences.

And the environmental issues cannot be ignored. Disney’s property stretches across a wide swath of Central Florida and is mostly green space, overlapping with the Florida Wildlife Corridor, a critically important habitat. RCID devotes millions of dollars every year to water quality alone, from the fertilizers they select to the higher water purification levels they maintain, benefitting other downstream waterways in the southern part of the state.

It’s all overseen by a Board of Supervisors who are appointed by the voters of RCID: the Walt Disney Company, of course, and a handful of selected current and former Disney employees who are named trustees of specific parcels.

RCID is not unique; Florida created over 1,800 of these special taxing districts throughout the state, including several at the Republican mecca retirement community The Villages with similar functions as RCID. (Keep that in mind whenever DeSantis and his allies complain this is too much power to grant a corporation; they only have a problem with it when it involves political opposition.)....>

<....Now, with Bob Iger resuming his former role as Disney CEO, the Financial Times is reporting that a deal is in the works to basically repeal the repeal of RCID.

“[S]tate lawmakers are working on a compromise that would allow Disney to keep the arrangement largely in place with a few modifications,” wrote the Times‘ Christopher Grimes, and then lays out how Iger’s “full-throated opposition” to the Parental Rights in Education bill had “put pressure” on his successor CEO Chapek to take a stand. Chapek did take that stand, DeSantis and the legislature lashed out by repealing RCID, and now Iger is taking a more conciliatory tone:

At a town hall meeting with employees on Monday, Iger said he was “sorry to see us get dragged into [the] battle” over Reedy Creek and needed time to “get up to speed” on the issue.

“What I can say [is] the state of Florida has been important to us for a long time and we have been very important to the state of Florida,” Iger said. “That is something I’m extremely mindful of and will articulate if I get the chance.”

Iger struck the right tone for reaching a compromise, said an influential figure in Florida state politics. “That was a good olive brand message to Disney employees and the state of Florida,” he said. “It was a diplomatic kind of message.”

State Sen. Linda Stewart, a Democrat representing parts of Orlando who previously served as an Orange County Commissioner for years, understands the issues involved with Disney and RCID well. “I don’t think [DeSantis] understood how badly this could go for the state of Florida and the counties and the cities,” she told the Times, correctly assessing the potential repeal of RCID as a “tax increase” for the residents.

According to Stewart, the planned compromise includes removing RCID’s ability to build a nuclear power plant or airport, two powers granted under the original 1967 statute that Disney has never pursued and seems highly unlikely to do so at any point in the foreseeable future.

Other discussions sound like an effort to help DeSantis pretend he “won” this mess he created, by allowing the governor to appoint two of the five members of the RCID board. Stewart seemed to acknowledge this was the intent, telling Grimes, “We can’t let the governor look like he lost.”

DeSantis and his spokespeople have claimed throughout this year that some sort of plan existed to solve the mess they created by repealing RCID, but refused to give any details before the election. Assuming the Times reporting is accurate (and my own sources are not contradicting anything in it so far), the “plan” is to take away two powers Disney wasn’t even using and maybe let DeSantis appoint a non-majority power to the RCID board so he can save face.

I’ve said throughout this saga that there was no way RCID would actually get repealed. Disney had multiple legal avenues to challenge it that were widely viewed as “slam dunk” winners by even notably conservative attorneys who are normally loath to make optimistic predictions about litigation outcomes. And the consequences to the state’s economy and environment would be far too dire.

Nothing has changed regarding the Parental Rights in Education bill. It’s still the law and Disney has no role in the ongoing litigation attempting to overturn it; Chapek’s memo was nothing more than a message to calm the outrage of his own employees and despite DeSantis’ furious protestations to the contrary, it did not constitute an actual legal challenge to the law.

The threatened repeal of RCID was, pure and simple, a pointless political stunt that got DeSantis some Fox News airtime. Now that sanity seems to be forcing our elected leaders in Tallahassee to back down, I’m glad to see it, but it would have been far better if they had never created this mess in the first place.>

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) will essentially act as Speaker of the House if Kevin McCarthy gets the job, according to former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele.

Donald Trump still controls the party, and is likely to win the GOP nomination for president in 2024, but Steele told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the party was fully in the thrall of an increasingly extreme base personified by Greene, was just re-elected to her second term in Congress.

"The media and others still want to focus on the man and, you know, what he's trying to do, what he's trying to say -- we're past that," Steele said. "I'm now looking at where the party leadership is trying to move itself, and the more telling thing for me was not the dinner that Donald Trump had with [Nick] Fuentes and Kanye [West]. It was the lack of response from political wannabes, who want to be president, the governor of Florida, which i still don't think he's put a statement out on that. The leadership of the party, 'Oh, we don't like antisemitism,' without saying that the anti-Semitic former president is the case to be made against, and to draw that very bright line and say this is not who we are, nor is it who we want to be."

Steele hasn't heard that and doesn't expect to, because party leadership fears the base.

"That small fraction of the party still has political, financial and other sway and control over the leadership," he said. "Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the most powerful Speaker of the House because she will have the opportunity to control what comes out of Kevin's mouth around the things that matter to that small cadre."

Another panelist stopped him and asked whether he thought Greene would actually be the speaker, and said she might as well be.

"I just call the thing what it is," Steele said. "You call it shadow, I call it the thing. It's the job, because what you can't make that separation, when she is -- you're dragging her to your events and propping her up, telling her we're going to put you back in committee, we're going to give you a powerful leadership role. Come on.">

<NEW YORK - Former President Donald Trump "explicitly" sanctioned the alleged tax fraud scheme at the heart of the criminal trial of two Trump companies, a prosecutor argued Friday, citing trial evidence.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass made the assertion during closing arguments in the trial of the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation. He said evidence showed "Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud,” and suggested that Trump could be deemed an unindicted co-conspirator.

The assertion, and other mentions of Trump during closing arguments by Steinglass prompted defense lawyers to seek a mistrial, as the trial that began in late October appeared headed to a conclusion next week.

"It can't be undone" from jurors' minds, said defense lawyer Michael van der Veen.

Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied the request. However, he agreed to give the four-man, eight-woman jury instructions about the Trump mentions when the jurors return to court Monday for final instructions on the law and and the start of deliberations.

Depending on the judge's instruction, the argument from the prosecution could lead jurors to question whether someone higher in the Trump businesses than former CFO Allen Weisselberg potentially took a see-no-evil stance on the alleged tax fraud. That could buttress prosecutors' arguments that the alleged scheme kept executives happy and lowered payroll costs.

It could also help prosecutors' efforts to satisfy the requirements under New York state law for finding that a corporation has committed a crime.

Trump, who is mounting a third presidential campaign, is not charged in the case and has not appeared in the courtroom during the trial. However, he criticized the prosecution last week on Truth Social. And the former president continues to face a parade of legal developments and challenges as he seeks to return to the Oval Office.

Defense attorney Susan Necheles characterized the Steinglass assertions as "just grandstanding by the prosecutors."

She said Weisselberg, the disgraced former chief financial officer for Trump's business empire and the prosecution's star witness, "testified under oath that he hid his efforts to evade personal income taxes from President Trump and the Trump family and that he acted solely for his own personal gain."

"He repeatedly testified that he never told President Trump anything about how he was reporting items on his personal tax returns and the President Trump trusted him to do things correctly," said Necheles.

The exchanges Friday, including angry accusations between the prosecution and the defense, marked the end of evidence-presentation and arguments in the trial.

The Trump firms are accused of doling out off-the-books perks, including company-paid Manhattan rental apartments, leased luxury cars and untaxed, improperly issued bonuses to top executives who did not report the income on their tax returns.

Steinglass started the legal fireworks as he began his closing argument on Thursday. "Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on with his top executives," the prosecutor said.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 crimes in an August agreement with prosecutors that promised him a sentence of roughly 100 days in jail, far lower than the 15-year maximum prison term he faced. In exchange, he agreed to testify truthfully at the trial of the two Trump companies....>

<...Steinglass pointed to evidence showing Trump recommended that Weisselberg move into Manhattan from his Long Island home. Trump also convened a special meeting of the Trump Corporation that authorized him to sign a lease on the apartment for the sole use of Weisselberg and his wife, said the prosecutor.

As the prosecutor spoke, a slide of the lease's final page, with Trump's signature, was displayed on a monitor in the courtroom.

Steinglass also showed jurors a similar apartment lease for Matthew Calamari, the longtime chief operating officer of Trump's business world who has been deemed an unindicted conspirator in the case. The lease showed Trump's OK on that document too.

The prosecutor reminded jurors that Trump approved luxury auto leases for Weisselberg's wife, even though he knew she was not a company employee.

Weisselberg did not report the value of the apartment, car leases for his wife and similar auto leases for himself on his tax returns, trial evidence showed.

Steinglass also reminded jurors that evidence showed Trump approved company executives' bonuses and signed every check for those benefits. Many of those payments to Weisselberg and others came in the form of untaxed disbursements to independent contractors, and were included on the company's reports to the IRS, the evidence showed.

"This whole (defense) narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully unaware is not true," argued Steinglass. He said the evidence rebutted defense closing arguments that Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization controller, had "gone rogue" by orchestrating the alleged tax evasion scheme and concealing it from other top company officials.

Those arguments prompted the defense motion for a mistrial.

"He made (Trump) an unindicted co-conspirator and said he sanctioned the tax fraud. It's a bias that he put on the jury and it cannot be undone," said van der Veen.

"He can be a co-conspirator," responded Steinglass. "It has nothing to do that he is Donald Trump. It has to do that he is the president and CEO of these companies."

After hearing both sides' arguments, the trial judge said declaring a mistrial was "not even a thought."

When the jury returns on Monday, the trial judge will instruct them on New York state laws as they apply to the case.

Those instructions are expected to include an explanation of a New York penal law that establishes when corporations may be found guilty of committing crimes.

The law covers wrongdoing by "high a managerial agent acting within the scope of his employment and in behalf of the corporation."

That could be Weisselberg, and possibly McConney, prosecutors previously have argued. However, the new prosecution assertion by Steinglass this week could cause some jurors to question whether the "high managerial agent" could be someone even higher in the Trump Organization.

Jurors also will have to wrestle with the meaning of the phrase "in benefit of."

Ruling on that question in a session without the jurors earlier in the week, the trial judge said the prosecution has to show "there was some intent to benefit the corporation."

However, "you cannot overstate what that intent was," Merchan said.>

<Former President Donald Trump asked a Florida federal court to keep the third-party review of documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate on schedule one day after a federal appeals court ruled to halt the special master from oversight.

Trump's request was made to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, the same judge who granted the special master review after federal authorities seized documents from his home in August as part of a criminal investigation into alleged retention of national security information, theft of government documents, and obstruction of justice.

The former president asked her to oppose the Justice Department's request to delay third-party review deadlines in light of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit throwing out special master Raymond Dearie's designated role on Thursday. Notably, the request did not indicate any plans for Trump to appeal the 11th Circuit's decision from the day before.

"President Trump opposes modification of the current case management order at this," his attorneys wrote, noting that Trump's counsel can be available for a telephonic status conference on Dec. 6 after that date.

The appeals court wrote on Dec. 1 that its ruling will not go into effect until Dec. 8, giving Trump time to seek an appeal to pause the removal of Dearie, of Brooklyn’s federal court, from the case. The court also previously sped up the schedule for hearing DOJ’s appeal, returning a 21-page opinion in just over a week after the 11th Circuit panel held oral arguments the week of Thanksgiving.

Trump has the chance to get a rehearing of his case to keep his special master in front of the 11th Circuit or seek a Supreme Court review.

So far, the DOJ has not been able to use around 100 or so of the documents it obtained in the search in its criminal investigation while Dearie conducts his review.

The 11th Circuit's decision was handed down by a three-judge panel composed of two appointees of the former president and chief Judge William Pryor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush. The panel excoriated Cannon for her decision to appoint a special master in the first place.

"In considering these arguments, we are faced with a choice: apply our usual test; drastically expand the availability of equitable jurisdiction for every subject of a search warrant; or carve out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents. We choose the first option. So the case must be dismissed," the appeals court held.>

<Former President Donald Trump on Saturday evening doubled down on his calls to "terminate" the United States Constitution and restore him to power.

Writing on his Truth Social website, Trump again expressed rage at his loss in the 2020 election, which he still falsely maintains was "stolen" from him,

"The world is laughing at the United States of America and its corrupt and rigged Presidential Election of 2020!" Trump wrote.

In an all-caps follow-up post, Trump wrote that "UNPRECEDENTED FRAUD REQUIRES UNPRECEDENTED CURE!"

Earlier on Saturday, Trump elaborated on what this "unprecedented cure" would look like when he said that it would require "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."

In a final post, Trump attacked Republicans who voted to certify President Joe Biden's win in the 2020 election.

"I wonder what Mitch McConnell, the RINOS, and all of the weak Republicans who couldn’t get the Presidential Election of 2020 approved and out of the way fast enough, are thinking now?" he raged. "They are a disgrace to our great Party, and to our Nation, which has become a laughing stock all over the World!">

<A Nebraska man will serve prison time after he left a noose on a Black coworker's equipment chair.

Bruce Quinn, a 66-year-old former employee at the Oriental Trading Co. who previously pled guilty to a federal civil rights violation in September, was sentenced to four months in prison and one year of supervised release, according to the Nebraska U.S. Attorney's office.

The sentencing comes over two years after Quinn's 63-year-old coworker Keith Kirksey found a noose made out of orange twine on the seat of a floor scrubber that he was about to use in June 2020.

"Federal courts have long recognized the noose as one of the most vile symbols in American history," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said. "Individuals, like this defendant, who use a noose to convey a threat of violence at a workplace will be held accountable for their actions."

The DOJ shared in a release that Kirksey discovered the 8-to-12-inch piece of orange twine left on a seat for him, at a time when he was the only Black employee trained to use the scrubber. He told investigators that he believed it signified a death threat against him.

Plea agreement documents obtained by local station WOWT show that Quinn admitted he put the noose in a place where he knew his coworker would find it, and that he also claimed "Nazi stuff doesn't make Black people crazy. But a hangman's noose certainly would."

"Why would somebody want to do that," the victim asked WOWT two years ago. "And by me hearing on the news about all the other hangings and stuff in the United States, you would think that stuff had stopped, but it keeps going on and on."

Quinn's official charge is "Interference with Federally Protected Activities," and he was sentenced by Judge Susan M. Bazis, per a release.

"It put my family through traumatic stress due to the fact that Keith is one of my younger brothers," the victim's sister, Jacqueline Y. Kirksey, told WOWT. "Living in the state of Nebraska I never thought I would have to experience something like my brother went through, due to the fact that it is now 2022. And it made me think of Willie Brown, Emmett Till. I thought we were beyond that however today proved that we're not."

Donald Robinson, Kirksey's friend, told the station that he thought the sentencing was "rather light" given what the coworker did. "I also feel with the climate that's been going on all across the world a greater message needs to be sent," he said.

Quinn was previously charged with a DUI, WOWT reported, citing a judge. The network added that he will self-report when he begins his sentence, and he will serve the time in Yankton, South Dakota.

"We want everybody to know my uncle's life does matter and no matter what the courts had to say, there's a higher power that has the last say and Keith Kirksey's life does matter," Jewell Kirksey Smith said.>

<Early voting in the U.S. Senate runoff election in Georgia may have made Republican candidate Herschel Walker's prospects of winning bleaker, as turnout has been high in Democratic strongholds.

Voting is already underway—with Georgia voters getting the chance to cast their ballots last Saturday following a court ruling—and some Democratic-leaning areas, including Atlanta, have been making use of the opportunity.

Black voters made up 32.4 percent of the early vote for the runoff election through Thursday in what could also be a good sign for Warnock, who won 90 percent of the Black vote on November 8, according to an NBC News exit poll.

However, political scientists who spoke to Newsweek said that the race would still be very close and Walker could yet emerge victorious.....

....The Walker campaign has been dogged by controversy, including accusations that he paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion and pressured another into having a termination—which he as [sic] denied—and his frequent public gaffes.

"Regardless of how Herschel Walker ultimately fares, the remarkable aspect of the Georgia runoff is how he's managed to make it as far as he has," Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek.

"For a scandal-plagued, rookie politician with no qualifications, no policy expertise, and no discernible message, getting within striking distance of a seat in the U.S. Senate is a feat in and of itself," he said.

Close Race

Even if signs suggest Walker is heading for defeat, polls have consistently shown the contest will be a close one and at this stage there is no guarantee of the result.

"This remains a very close race, still well within the margin for error, but where the polls suggest those few undecided voters left in Georgia may be edging towards Warnock," said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor at the University of Surrey in the U.K. and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage.

"Walker has always been a risky candidate for the Republicans with no political background before 2022. For many voters, the more he has opened his mouth, the clearer it has been that being an All-American Football hero is a poor preparation for the cut and thrust of a statewide political campaign," Shanahan told Newsweek.

He said that: "without its 'must-win' status in the race for Senate control, many Republicans who voted on party lines while holding their nose about the candidate in November, may well just stay at home this week."

"But Georgia historically has favored Republicans in run-off races, so Walker will still believe he can win," Shanahan said.

Democratic Turnout

Ultimately, the Georgia Senate runoff will be decided by voters who show up both during early voting and on December 6. Warnock will be hoping to maximize Democratic turnout.

"The heavy turnout in early voting, especially in Democratic areas, points toward a solid victory for Warnock," Quirk told Newsweek. "In this situation, Walker's vote will probably be mostly limited to ardent Republicans—those who are willing to show up and be counted, even for a disastrous candidate, even though control of the Senate is no longer at stake, and with no other races to motivate them."

"The latest polls show Warnock leading Walker by 52 percent to 48 percent," Quirk said, referencing a recent CNN/SSRS poll. "But with Warnock's likely major advantage in turnout, his winning margin will probably be significantly larger."

Shanahan described Warnock as a "well-funded" candidate who "appears to have fared well in the early voting cycle."

"But Warnock needs to mobilize his base to get as many Democrats to the polls as possible on December 6," Shanahan warned. "The suggestions are that fewer Georgians have voted early than either in November or in the 2021 run-off. And with more Republicans tending to vote on election day, any sign of complacency leading to a Warnock failure to get the vote out could still hand Walker a six-year ticket to D.C."

Gift summed up the race: "What the election reflects, like so many races across the country, is that voting is only nominally about the actual candidates on the ballot. Instead, it's almost purely about Republican vs. Democrat.">

<Former President Donald Trump wrapped up a busy Saturday of posts on his Truth Social platform by angrily lashing out at reports that a Republican who voted in favor of his impeachment could become Speaker of the House if Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) falls short.

Politico this week reported on whispers among moderate Republicans and Democrats about joining together and nominating outgoing Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) as House Speaker should Republican hardliners sabotage McCarthy's bid.

Even though Upton is retiring as a congressman and did not seek a new term in office, the Speaker of the House of Representatives does not have to be an actively serving representative.

While it is currently not certain how serious the chatter about drafting Upton to lead the House of Representatives is, it was enough to trigger Trump into angrily denouncing the idea.

"Rep. Fred Upton, a Pro-Impeachment RINO, would be a disaster for anything having to do with the word Republican, but especially when it comes to Speaker of the House," Trump fumed on Truth Social. "My record on Endorsements in the General Election was 232-22, and in the Primaries was 98.6%. I would never have endorsed Upton, who quit Congress in the face of a challenge, and that’s not what Republican’s [sic] need. A very dangerous game is being played. Peace through Strength!!!">

'Peace through (s)trength?'

I always rather thought he thrived on discord.

<In his first major interview since being elected the first Black leader in Congress, the New York Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was asked what he thought of Kevin McCarthy, the Californian now seeking the votes to be speaker when Republicans take over the House next year.

“We serve in Congress together,” Jeffries said.

Then, CNN reported, the new House minority leader “stopped talking”.

Given the rancorous nature of US politics, particularly in the House of Representatives, Jeffries’ reluctance to speak warmly of his opponent, or even to comment at all, was not particularly surprising.

Pressed, he said: “I respect the fact that [McCarthy] is the current House Republican leader, and depending on what happens on 3 January, may be the next Republican speaker.”

McCarthy’s party took the House in last month’s midterm elections but not with the “red wave” many expected, the result a narrow majority and a would-be speaker at the mercy of the pro-Trump far-right.

Jeffries said: “It’s incredible to me that even at this point in time, as [Republicans are] on their way temporarily into the majority, they have not articulated a vision for addressing the economic concerns of the American people. It’s because there’s a real risk that the incoming Republican majority is being hijacked by the extremists who have grown in ranks.”

On Sunday, CNN asked Mike Lawler, a Republican congressman-elect from New York, a state where the party performed relatively well, if he would back McCarthy.

Lawler said: “We’re not going to be held hostage by a handful of members when the overwhelming majority of the conference is in full support of Kevin McCarthy.”....>

More to follow....

<....Speakers need only 218 votes, a simple majority, regardless of party lines. The longest such contest, concluding in February 1856, went through 133 ballots. Lawler said he would back McCarthy through numerous rounds if necessary.

“I will only be voting for Kevin McCarthy for speaker,” he said. “I know many of my colleagues within the conference feel the same way. This is potentially something that could come to a head, but I do think cooler heads will prevail and I do think on 3 January, Kevin will have the necessary votes to become speaker.”

Also on Sunday, Jeffries told ABC’s This Week his mission would be “to find ways to work with Republicans whenever possible to get things done for the American people … but we will also oppose them when we must, particularly as it relates to any effort to go down this rabbit hole of unnecessary, unconscionable, unacceptable investigations of the administration.”

House Republicans have indicated targets for investigation will include Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, immigration policy and the House committee investigating Trump’s election subversion and the January 6 Capitol riot.

Jeffries said he had “not had any conversations with Republicans yet. We are in the process of organising as Democrats. They are in the process, of course, of organising as Republicans. But I look forward to those conversations, certainly.”

He was also asked about suggestions that a moderate Republican challenger to McCarthy might attract enough Democratic votes to become speaker. Jeffries hedged, saying, “I think the question right now is, what are the Republicans going to do?” Pressed on the matter, asked if the door was “still open” to such a scheme, he said: “Well, let’s see.”

Dave Joyce of Ohio, chair of the moderate Republican Governance Group, told ABC the right of his party had not suggested a plausible alternative to McCarthy.

“You can’t beat somebody with nobody,” he said. “And right now you hear, ‘We’re just not going to vote for Kevin.’ Well, who then? Kevin deserves the opportunity. And he has done the hard work that was necessary to bring together the majority.”

Related: Biden rebukes Trump for saying constitution should be ‘terminated’

Joyce said that though a moderate Republican with Democratic support “probably would be a perfect resolution … so we could start moving forward”, he did not “see it happening … I think the Democrats are going to vote for Democrats, Republicans will vote for Republicans. And I think, at the end of the day, Kevin will be the next speaker of the House.”

In the Senate, Democrats held control even before the Georgia runoff on Tuesday which will decide if they continue to rely on the vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, or by a 51-49 majority.

In his CNN interview, Jeffries was asked about comments by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, who this week called Jeffries “a past election denier” over remarks about the 2016 presidential election, the legitimacy of which he questioned because of Russian interference, and Donald Trump.