<Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore torched ex-President Donald Trump over his sexual abuse case and ripped ex-VP Mike Pence for downplaying the verdict, then gave Chuck Todd a quote from Jesus when asked if he could ever vote for Trump.

On Sunday morning’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, Todd asked Moore about the unanimous verdicts finding Trump liable for sexual battery and defamation of E. Jean Carroll and ordering him to pay Carroll $5 million.

Moore ripped Pence for downplaying it and Trump for defending his infamous Access Hollywood remarks, and mocking Carroll at a town hall, saying “think about the teenage girl in a church somewhere who’s being abused by her youth pastor wondering whether to come forward. And she hears not only that, but when the victim is ridiculed by a presidential candidate in front of a crowd, the response is laughter. That has devastating implications.”

And when asked if he could ever support Trump, Moore offered a scriptural response:

CHUCK TODD: You know, even former Vice President Pence was kind of dismissive of the defamation verdict with E. Jean Carroll against the former president, you know, saying, “Well, I think this is something that the media cares more about.” That was a shocking reaction for me coming from the former vice president. Was it (UNINTEL)?

RUSSELL MOORE: I’m not sure what’s going on in Vice President Pence’s mind at this point. I know it was a shocking moment for me even after everything that we’ve seen. And what’s primarily shocking is the fact that here we are in a week where a former president of the United States is found liable for sexual abuse and sexual assault and defamation of a woman who survived such abuse and assault. And the country just yawns for the most part.

That tells me that something has really, really badly gone awry in this country. And you add to it the demeanor and the content of President Trump’s deposition to simply shrug off and defend the Access Hollywood comments. In 2015, I said that President Trump, or Donald Trump at the time, had the attitude toward women of a Bronze Age war lord.

In that deposition, he said, “Yes, as a matter of fact,” predated it back to millions of years ago, and said, “Unfortunately or fortunately, that’s the way that it is.” Well, think about the teenage girl in a church somewhere who’s being abused by her youth pastor wondering whether to come forward. And she hears not only that, but when the victim is ridiculed by a presidential candidate in front of a crowd, the response is laughter. That has devastating implications....>

Rest to foller....

<And when asked if he could ever support Trump, Moore offered a scriptural response:

CHUCK TODD: You know, even former Vice President Pence was kind of dismissive of the defamation verdict with E. Jean Carroll against the former president, you know, saying, “Well, I think this is something that the media cares more about.” That was a shocking reaction for me coming from the former vice president. Was it (UNINTEL)?

RUSSELL MOORE: I’m not sure what’s going on in Vice President Pence’s mind at this point. I know it was a shocking moment for me even after everything that we’ve seen. And what’s primarily shocking is the fact that here we are in a week where a former president of the United States is found liable for sexual abuse and sexual assault and defamation of a woman who survived such abuse and assault. And the country just yawns for the most part.

That tells me that something has really, really badly gone awry in this country. And you add to it the demeanor and the content of President Trump’s deposition to simply shrug off and defend the Access Hollywood comments. In 2015, I said that President Trump, or Donald Trump at the time, had the attitude toward women of a Bronze Age war lord.

In that deposition, he said, “Yes, as a matter of fact,” predated it back to millions of years ago, and said, “Unfortunately or fortunately, that’s the way that it is.” Well, think about the teenage girl in a church somewhere who’s being abused by her youth pastor wondering whether to come forward. And she hears not only that, but when the victim is ridiculed by a presidential candidate in front of a crowd, the response is laughter. That has devastating implications.

CHUCK TODD: Eight years ago when Donald Trump first ran, there was a divide inside the evangelical community. And there was a lot of hand-wringing. And many came down on the side of, “Well, if the choice is between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump will appoint the judges that I like.” You seem to indicate after Donald Trump announced his reelection plans after the November 2022 midterms that you didn’t sense a divide anymore in the evangelical community, that politically they’re all in. Do you still sense that?

RUSSELL MOORE: Well, I think that’s probably true with the politically activated, politically energized base. I don’t think that’s true of everyone. And that’s one of the reasons why we see churches divided. We see families divided. I mean, one of the most dismaying aspects of the Trump years is the fact that Donald Trump is at the center of everything.

Almost every congregation that I know is either divided or tense about these sorts of political controversies coming out of the Trump years. Almost every family that I know has people who don’t speak to each other anymore about this personality and this figure.

And I think there are a lot of people, including conservative evangelicals like me, who are looking at this and saying, “Are we really going to do this again? Haven’t we seen this already? Do we really want to repeat it?” And I suppose that will be the question for the rest of the year.

CHUCK TODD: What would you like to see from other candidates? I mean, it seems that they very much don’t want to make a character case against the former president.

RUSSELL MOORE: Well, I think someone needs to step forward and talk about the importance of character and talk about the importance of having someone who can be trusted to have the nuclear codes. I mean, we really need someone to step forward and say, “Let’s remember what’s at stake here.”

We’re not just choosing what kind of entertainment we’re going to have for the next six years. We’re talking about the direction of the country. And we’re talking about what our children are seeing and potentially will replicate.

If you have an entire generation who only grow up seeing this, what’s going to happen? We need somebody who will make that case and say it. And right now, among candidates, among elected officials, sometimes even among church officials, there’s fear. No one wants to speak to this because they’re afraid of what will happen to them. The stakes are too high.

CHUCK TODD: Last question. Is there any circumstance you could imagine supporting Donald Trump?

<Former President Donald Trump erupted on Monday after special counsel John Durham released a 300-page report regarding the FBI's investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign

Trump took to his social media site, and claimed, "WOW! After extensive research, Special Counsel John Durham concludes the FBI never should have launched the Trump-Russia Probe! In other words, the American Public was scammed, just as it is being scammed right now by those who don’t want to see GREATNESS for AMERICA!"

About an hour later he posted again: "The Durham Report spells out in great detail the Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people. This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like 'stuffing' the ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge impact on the Election. With an honest (sic) Media, we are looking at the Crime of the Century!"

But it was after about an hour that Trump really started cooking.

"THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!" he posted. Durham found that there was no crime, which is why he was unable to prosecute anyone successfully. In one case, with he got a guilty plea for lying on a form, Robert Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissmann explained to MSNBC.

About 10 minutes later he said: "TREASON!!!"

The findings from Durham don't suggest treason, nor has anyone been charged with treason in the case.

About another ten minutes passed and he demanded that Congress do something, though he didn't say exactly what it is they should do.

"CONGRESS MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS. MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!" he posted.

Ten minutes later he proclaimed again in all-caps: "SO PROUD TO HAVE FIRED JAMES COMEY. INSTINCT!"

Another ten minutes later he posted another message: "JACK SMITH AND THE SPECIAL PERSECUTORS OFFICE ARE PLAYING THE SAME GAMES WITH ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND FAKE PROSECUTIONS AS JAMES COMEY, ONLY FAR MORE OBVIOUS. THE DOJ MUST END THIS CHARADE RIGHT NOW, AND THAT GOES TO THEIR USE OF D.A.’s & A.G’s IN ATLANTA & NEW YORK. MAGA!!!"

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis doesn't work for the Justice Department, she was elected by the voters. Similarly, the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, also doesn't work under the DOJ, he was elected. Neither answers to the DOJ. Jack Smith does, but he's not tasked with looking at anything Russia related.>

<The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) has recently rejected two proposed Holocaust-focused textbooks and made edits to another concerning the Hebrew Bible to meet state standards.

Files provided by the FDOE reveal that the textbooks titled 'Modern Genocides' and 'History of the Holocaust' did not receive approval from the educational review committee.

This rejection is part of the FDOE's efforts to address what Governor Ron DeSantis has referred to as "woke brainwashing" related to race and gender.

Furthermore, the FDOE prohibits the teaching of "critical race theory" and is currently considering legislation to prohibit state-funded higher education institutions from teaching "critical theory."

Manny Diaz Jr., the FDOE's Education Commissioner, stated in a news release, "To maintain our exceptional standards, we must ensure that our students and teachers have access to the highest quality materials available—materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric."

According to documents, the textbook "Modern Genocides" was deemed inappropriate for education due to the inclusion of "special topics" that are forbidden by the state.

These topics include terms such as "social justice" and "critical race theory," which Republicans have used derogatorily to refer to discussions on systemic racism in the United States.

Similarly, the "History of the Holocaust" textbook was rejected for receiving low scores from the state's instructional review committee, failing to meet state requirements for instruction on its subject matter.

Additionally, the FDOE instructed the publisher of a social research studies book intended for grades 6-8 to modify a reference to the Hebrew Bible in order to meet its standards.

Initially, the book raised concerns among teachers by asking, "What social justice issues are included in the Hebrew Bible?" The FDOE deemed the original version politically charged and replaced the expression "social justice concerns" with the term "key principles."

Out of 101 submitted social studies textbooks this year, the FDOE approved 66 under its new rubric, while the remaining 35 proposals were rejected.

To gain access to the Florida textbook market, several social studies book publishers have been proactively removing language discussing race and segregation.

Florida law also allows parents to challenge educational materials and books in public school libraries, resulting in the permanent or temporary removal of Holocaust literature as some deem it inappropriate for children.

The FDOE's recent review process has raised concerns among many. With older textbooks already in use in the state, there are questions about whether the FDOE plans to regularly review and update social studies materials, per the Jerusalem Post.

If so, will the FDOE ensure that the content is audited for any bias or political perspective that could hinder students from learning an objective and fair version of events?>

<Among the allies trumpeting the release of special counsel John Durham's report criticizing the FBI investigation of the 2016 Donald Trump campaign is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), claiming it is proof of his claims that federal law enforcement was "weaponized" against the former president, and inviting Durham to testify about his report to the House.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), speaking to CNN on Monday, isn't impressed with his behavior.

"I want to get your thoughts, Congresswoman, on the special counsel John Durham's report that was released earlier today," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "Do you support the Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan's call to have Durham testify before Congress? I know you're a member of the Judiciary Committee. What do you think?"

"I am a member of the House Judiciary Committee," confirmed Escobar. "And Chairman Jordan, unfortunately, instead of using the committee as a vehicle for getting real work done for the American people, solving the many challenges that we face in our country, he has used it as an opportunity for performance."

"I have not yet read the Durham report," added Escobar. "But I have definitely had an opportunity to look through some of it. I've heard reports about it. We've spent an awful lot of money as an American government on a report that essentially proves no wrongdoing. But the fact that Chairman Jordan wants to just continue this shows their disinterest in, really, the work of governing."

This comes as the Durham report itself has been broadly panned by legal experts as the culmination of a probe that yielded very little in the way of actual criminal wrongdoing.>

<The day after Donald Trump lost his defense of E. Jean Carroll's defamation case, he appeared on CNN for the town hall and insulted and mocked her again.

Speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow Monday, Carroll's lawyer explained that they are working through the next steps in acting against Trump following that alleged defamation.

"So, it is definitely actionable," lawyer Robbie Kaplan said about suing Trump again. "And here, the cruelty will make him less wealthy. He is not going to get away with it another time. It's unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation to keep doing the defamation. So, there aren't a lot of cases we can look to for a playbook about how to do it but suffice it to say, I have a lot of lawyers [who are] very busy looking into this, and we are weighing all of our options."

There's another case before Judge Lewis Kaplan (no relation to Carroll's lawyer) that involves Trump defaming Carroll in 2019 when he was still president. It's been working its way through the courts, and Robbie Kaplan explained that there would be news coming in that regard very soon.

"I don't know how late the people work tonight," Kaplan explained. "Two to three days max. ... We are fully pursuing that case. We got a nice, very good decision from the D.C. Court of Appeals, essentially affirming Judge Kaplan that when Trump said what he said about E. Jean in 2019, he was not acting as president. We are quite confident that will be affirmed and then we'll be able to move forward with damages in that case. We don't even need a finding of liability because we already have it. We'll be able to find damages, and there the defamation damages are much higher [in that case]. That was the first statement he made, and that's what really destroyed her reputation as an advice columnist to all of her readers who trusted her and looked up to her."

Carroll was fired from Elle Magazine, which she links to Trump's public attacks.

Maddow pin-pointed Carroll's comment, saying, "Trump hurts people," which the host found unique.

"When he came on stage right after our enormous victory, and he made jokes about sexual assault — I couldn't believe the pain he was causing to thousands of people by joking about sexual assault," said Carroll. "And that's how he hurts people. That's how he hurts people. And I'd love to have Robbie Kaplan just shut him up."

Kaplan also noted that she thinks others will sue Trump for defamation. Maddow brought up Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, both of whom Trump attacked in front of rally crowds, claiming they stole the election from him. It led to many attacks on the women that terrorized them and destroyed their lives, according to their testimony before the House Select Committee.

"Do you think the success of this case doesn't just buoy people who feel like, finally, accountability, finally truth being nailed to the wall and not let it slide? But does it have the potential to change the legal landscape for other civil cases against Trump?" Maddow asked.

Kaplan said she thinks it does.

"Because he is actually a very good defamation defendant if you are planning to sue for defamation because he lies all the time," she explained. "He lies as a matter of habit. He lies about big things. He lies about small things. And in this case, we were able to show those lies not only about it being fake news and a hoax and made-up story but even when I showed him that famous photo where he mistook E. Jean for Marla Maples, when he realized he had made the mistake he then said, 'the photo is blurry.' The photo was not blurry, but it was classic Donald Trump. And I think the jury really heard that. They really absorbed it. That's why we got a verdict in two and a half hours.">

<Justice Clarence Thomas has been controversial throughout his 32 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, but he has suffered especially bad publicity in 2022 and 2023 — so bad that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has even been calling for his impeachment.

First came revelations that his wife, far-right GOP activist Ginni Thomas, had tried to help Republicans overturn the 2020 presidential election results despite the fact that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes. Then came a series of reports from ProPublica focusing on Justice Thomas' relationship with billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow.

According to ProPublica, Justice Thomas has, for "over 20 years," been "treated to luxury vacations" by Crow and failed to report them. Nor did the justice report that Crow bought property from him and paid his grandnephew's tuition in a private boarding school.

In an article published by The New Republic on May 15, journalist Michael Tomasky offers some reasons why he believes the Crow scandal won't be letting up in the weeks ahead.

Two senators who are scrutinizing Justice Thomas aggressively, according to Tomasky, are Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), who is also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Wyden and Whitehouse mean business," Tomasky argues. "Whitehouse has been the Democrats' point person in the Senate for years on these ethics matters. But of the two, Wyden spells more potential trouble for Thomas and Crow because as chairman of one of Congress' tax-writing committees, he has what's called 6103 authority: the power to ask for any citizen's tax returns at any time for any reason."

Justice Thomas, Tomasky writes, has been "stonewalling" the U.S. Senate about his relationship with Crow and the "full extent" of the "gifts" he has received. But Wyden and Whitehouse are showing no signs of letting up.

"It's my understanding that there's more news coming on Thomas and Crow," Tomasky explains. "It seems highly possible that what we know so far, ghastly as it is, barely scratches the surface. And Wyden and Whitehouse are going to keep at this."

The journalist adds, "To paraphrase (Winston) Churchill, this isn't the end of the story. This is just the beginning of the end.">

<The Georgia prosecutor who's investigating whether Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state fought back Monday against the former president's attempt to remove her from the case and exclude certain evidence.

Trump's Georgia legal team in March asked the court to toss out the report of a special grand jury that had been seated in the case and to prevent prosecutors from using any evidence or testimony stemming from the panel’s investigation. They also asked that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office be barred from continuing to investigate or prosecute the case.

Willis responded in a filing Monday that the Trump's motion is “procedurally flawed” and advances “arguments that lack merit.”

For more than two years now, Willis has been investigating the actions Trump and others took in the wake of the 2020 election. She took the unusual step last year of asking for a special grand jury to aid the investigation, saying the panel's subpoena power would allow her team to compel the testimony of people who might not otherwise cooperate.

The special grand jury, which did not have the power to issue indictments, was seated last May and dissolved in January after hearing from 75 witnesses and submitting a report with recommendations for Willis. Though most of that report remains under wraps for now according to a judge's order, the panel's foreperson has said without naming names that the special grand jury recommended charging multiple people.

Trump lawyers Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg argued that the special grand jury “involved a constant lack of clarity as to the law, inconsistent applications of basic constitutional protections for individuals being brought before it, and a prosecutor’s office that was found to have an actual conflict, yet continued to pursue the investigation.”

They also asked that their claims be heard by a judge other than Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury....>

<....Cathy Latham, one of 16 Georgia Republicans who met at the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won the presidential election and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, last month joined Trump’s motion. It has become clear during the investigation that Willis is interested in the actions of the fake electors, and at least eight of them have secured immunity deals in the case.

In her motion Monday, Willis asked that McBurney retain supervision of the matter and urged that Trump and Latham's motions be dismissed or denied without holding a hearing.

Willis wrote that the arguments put forth in the motions fail to meet the “exacting standards" for disqualifying a prosecutor and they also fail to prove their claims that their own due process rights have been violated or that the grand jury process was “tainted” or the law governing it unconstitutional.

Trump and Latham “are not content to follow the ordinary course of the law,” Willis wrote.

“The State's reply was primarily procedural in nature and failed to address several of the critical substantive issues which were discussed at length in our brief and exhibits,” Trump's lawyers said in a statement, adding that they plan to ask the court for time to file a response.

A coalition of news organizations, including The Associated Press, also filed a motion Monday objecting to Trump’s request that the special grand jury report be “quashed and expunged from the record.”

“Not only is such a remedy unsupported by any legal basis, it would also be starkly at odds with the fundamental principles of this Nation and State,” the media lawyers argued. “The Report is a matter of the utmost public concern, and it should be released to the public in its entirety.”

Willis last month sent letters to local law enforcement leaders advising them to prepare for “heightened security” as she intends to announce charging decisions in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1. To secure an indictment, she needs to bring the case before a regular grand jury.

The Georgia investigation is one of several that threatens the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House in 2024. A Manhattan grand jury in March indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to a porn actor during the 2016 presidential election. Meanwhile, federal grand juries in Washington are investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election and the potential mishandling of classified documents by Trump at his Florida estate.

And a federal jury in New York last week found Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million.>

<Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow pushed back on Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Monday, noting that House Republican leaders have yet to show any actual evidence of wrongdoing on the part of President Joe Biden – despite Johnson’s lengthy monologue accusing the president of rampant corruption.

“I will say that I don’t know what more evidence the American public needs. Now, I realize because the corrupt media most this evidence has not been broadcast so that most Americans are not aware of the complete moral bankruptcy and moral depravity of the Biden family,” declared Johnson during the interview.

“Ever since Senator Grassley and I issued our report, we showed all these financial transactions, millions of dollars. We showed diamonds being given. We saw the potential money laundering. We laid out all this complexity, their LLCs. But the media, again, just labeled all that Russian disinformation and walked away from it,” Johnson declared.

After letting Johnson sling accusations, Kudlow replied, “Trouble is, seems to me and I agree, the other evidence is now proliferating all these suspicious accounts from the Treasury Department, so forth. But, Biden himself as vice president and maybe as president has not yet been clearly fingered.”

Kudlow responded by stating there still appears to be a “big missing link” that implicates the president.

“We haven’t really fingered him,” the host said.

“Well, we need all the bank records. I know James Comer hasn’t been able to get all the bank records, but let’s face it, criminals hide their criminal activity,” Johnson claimed, offering a self-reinforcing argument.

“They don’t make it easy for people to uncover their wrongdoing. And so these investigations are painstaking. You’ve got to pick at one piece of evidence and try and follow that thread to the next piece. And again, when you’ve got a complicit and corrupt media that won’t report the truth, that shows in terms of all the evidence, we already do know of the corruption of the Biden family, but we still elect this guy president and there’s still covering up for him. It’s a real issue,” Johnson concluded.

Kudlow then went on to ask Johnson one more question, but first reassured the senator. “One last one. Senator Johnson, we appreciate your time. You’re a great friend. You’re actually a great personal friend,” Kudlow noted.>

<In America today, there is no man more obsessed with “manhood” than Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).

And while he’s never been to war, he spends most of his waking hours cosplaying on the battlefields of a culture war. This includes accusing men like us, two Marine veterans, of wanting to redefine things “like courage, and independence, and assertiveness—as a danger to society.”

Thankfully for those of us who have been poorly instructed, Josh’s book, Manhood, can show us the light. For just $29.99 we can learn the path to achieving Hawley-level masculinity by recreating ourselves in his own image.

While we haven’t read the book, we certainly hope there’s a chapter on the manliness of skittering away from mobs you’ve incited outside the U.S. Capitol.

But however cringe-worthy Hawley’s solutions might be, the problem is real. The data is clear: Working-class men in America are disconnected from the economy, and it hurts.

As two male Democrats, we have not just the opportunity but the responsibility to go on the offensive here and actually engage with the issues Hawley is misrepresenting. The senator is not here to work on the issues in good faith, he’s here to advance a culture war that serves his own ambition.

He wants men to think that by subscribing to his politics, or quitting video games, or buying his book, their problems will suddenly go away. But a culture war isn’t going to help these men who have fallen behind regain their footing in the economy, in education, in their local community. Instead, it’s just going to divide us further.

Real family values are about providing a healthy alternative to the toxic masculinity Hawley is offering. The disconnect between men and the economy or society isn’t happening because men are failing to achieve some weird idea of what it means to be a man. The core of this crisis is the fact that men without a college degree have seen their relative earnings fall by 30 percent since 1980.

Why? Because Josh Hawley and others like him have blocked advancements for working class Americans at every turn.

In his time as attorney general of Missouri, Hawley opposed workers receiving overtime pay—we’re talking about laborers, manufacturers, and other working-class jobs, many of which are filled by men. Thanks to Hawley’s efforts, over 230,000 working Missourians lost overtime protections. As if pay weren’t enough, he also went after benefits, using his position to try and strip away health care from working-class Missourians through his lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act.

When the opportunity to make a historic investment in American manufacturing and jobs came—the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—Hawley said no. When the opportunity came, again, to make a historic investment in American manufacturing and jobs, this time oriented to out-competing China, Hawley again said no. This is despite his tough-on-China talk, which so far has manifested as a petulant lone “no” vote against admitting Finland and Sweden to NATO (he thinks the war in Ukraine is a distraction), because apparently Hawley can’t comprehend that standing strong with Europe against Vladimir Putin is part and parcel of beating out Putin’s no-limits friend, Xi Jinping.

You can’t be serious about the challenges confronting America’s men while kneecapping them every chance you get. Barking orders at men at the latest manhood summit isn’t a serious solution. Real leaders don’t tell people what to do, anyway....>

<....Marine Corps leadership—as we were taught—is about empowering others through example, tools, and training. In this case, giving everyday Americans what they need to accomplish their mission.

Here’s how: Increase union workforce and strengthen federal collective bargaining laws. Republicans like Hawley are focused on destroying unions and championing right-to-work schemes. But the reality is unions remain one of the most important tools for upward mobility for America’s working class families. Solidarity. Teamwork. Caring for one another. Standing up for the little guy. All hallmarks of union culture, and by extension, American culture.

Support alternatives to four-year colleges. Workforce training programs, technical training initiatives, apprenticeships, pathways to in-demand jobs (like health care), and a retooling of job postings to remove degree requirements where they are not necessary. After all, jobs require skills; it’s employers who require degrees.

Hold the painkiller complex accountable. It’s not just opioids, it’s the entire industry that profits from numbing people to reality: online gaming; gambling; recreational drugs.

While giving young men the tools to succeed, we can also set the expectation that they engage with reality, and uphold their responsibilities to family and society.

Build things in America. Center the American worker as they focus on unleashing the dynamism of the U.S. economy, which too often is stymied by veto points and red tape embedded across our decision-making institutions.

These are all tangible things we can do that would boost working class men across this country.

Meanwhile, we shouldn’t flinch from the attacks being lobbed by Sen. Hawley and his allies.

There’s nothing manly about going on Fox News and lying directly to the very people you’re claiming to fight for. There’s nothing manly about opposing good jobs and health care for working families. And there’s certainly nothing manly about running away from a mob you helped incite.

Opportunity. A living wage. Service and responsibility. Family. Empowerment. This is what we strive for. Ideals real leaders can and should be aggressive about. Real leaders live real values, they don’t write fantasy books about them.>

<Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is touting his support for legislation that was proposed in February which Higher Ed Dive explained at the time "would upend some of the longest standing conventions of American higher education and introduce an unprecedented degree of state control, like forcing institutions to abandon gender studies programs."

House Bill 999 would "ban state colleges and universities from using funds to 'promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities that espouse diversity, equity, or inclusion [DEI] or Critical Race Theory rhetoric.' The bill would also give the state's board of governors the ability to remove 'any major or minor that is based on or otherwise utilizes pedagogical methodology associated with Critical Theory,'" CBS News added.

In a speech on Monday, DeSantis urged prospective college students to leave the Sunshine State to pursue the degrees that he abhors and then warned them that if they do, they will struggle to find a job.

"If you want to do things like gender ideology go to Berkeley. Go to some of these other places. That's fine. It's fine," DeSantis said to cheers.

"And there's nothing — if that's what you wanna do there's, there's nothing wrong with that, uh, per se — but for us, with our tax dollars, we wanna focus on the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be. We don't want to be diverted into a lot of these niche subjects that are heavily politicized," DeSantis continued.

"We want to focus on the basics and I think what you've seen as these types of majors and courses. First of all, how, how employable are you with some of these majors? I mean, really it's, um, it's not a good, uh, academic, uh, uh, choice in terms of being able to be employable," DeSantis declared. "That's one of the reasons I think this whole student loan thing, universities should be on the hook for the student loans. If that were the case, they would make sure that their curriculum was really fit to be productive for the students when they graduate.">

Oh, yeah--yer gonna hafta fork over a buncha dough into the bargain after bilking so many:

<Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes appears to be soon bound for prison after an appeals court Tuesday rejected her bid to remain free while she tries to overturn her conviction in a blood-testing hoax that brought her fleeting fame and fortune.

In another ruling issued late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila ordered Holmes to pay $452 million in restitution to the victims of her crimes. Holmes is being held jointly liable for that amount with her former lover and top Theranos lieutenant, Ramesh “Sunny" Balwani, who is already in prison after being convicted on a broader range of felonies in a separate trial.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Holmes' attempt to avoid prison comes nearly three weeks after she deployed a last-minute legal maneuver to delay the start of her 11-year sentence. She had been previously ordered to surrender to authorities on April 27 by Davila, who sentenced her in November.

Davila will now set a new date for Holmes, 39, to leave her current home in the San Diego area and report to prison.

The punishment will separate Holmes from her current partner, William “Billy” Evans, their 1-year-old son, William, and 3-month-old daughter, Invicta. Holmes’ pregnancy with Invicta — Latin for “invincible,” or “undefeated” — began after a jury convicted her on four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022.

Davila has recommended that Holmes serve her sentence at a women’s prison in Bryan, Texas. It hasn’t been disclosed whether the federal Bureau of Prisons accepted Davila’s recommendation or assigned Holmes to another facility.

Balwani, 57, began a nearly 13-year prison sentence in April after being convicted on 12 counts of fraud and conspiracy last July. He was incarcerated in a Southern California prison last month after losing a similar effort to remain free on bail while appealing his conviction.

The verdict against Holmes came after 46 days of trial testimony and other evidence that cast a spotlight on a culture of greed and hubris that infected Silicon Valley as technology became a more pervasive influence on society and the economy during the past 20 years.

The trial’s most riveting moments unfolded when Holmes took the witness stand to testify in her own defense.

Besides telling how she founded Theranos as a teenager after dropping out of Stanford University in 2003, Holmes accused Balwani of abusing her emotionally and sexually. She also asserted she never stopped believing Theranos would revolutionize healthcare with a technology that she promised would be able to scan for hundreds of diseases and other potential problems with just a few drops of blood.

While pursuing that audacious ambition, Holmes raised nearly $1 billion from a list of well-heeled investors that included Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Those sophisticated investors all lost their money after a Wall Street Journal investigation and regulatory reviews exposed dangerous flaws in Theranos’ technology.

In his restitution ruling, Davila determined that Holmes and Balwani should pay Murdoch $125 million —- by far the most among the investors listed in his order. The restitution also requires the co-conspirators in the Theranos scam to pay $40 million in Walgreens, which became an investor in the startup after agreeing to provide some of the flawed blood tests in its pharmacies in 2013. Another $14.5 million is owed to Safeway, which has also agreed to be a Theranos business partner before backing out.

In separate hearings, lawyers for Holmes and Balwani tried to persuade Davila their respective clients should be required to pay little, if anything. Prosecutors had been pushing for a restitution penalty in the $800 million range. Both Holmes — whose stake in Theranos was once valued at $4.5 billion — and Balwani — whose holdings were once valued around $500 million — have indicated they are nearly broke after running up millions of dollar [sic] in legal bills while proclaiming their innocence.

Holmes’s lawyers have been fighting her conviction on grounds of alleged mistakes and misconduct that occurred during her trial. They have also contended errors and abuses that biased the jury were so egregious that she should be allowed to stay out of prison while the appeal unfolds — a request that has now been rebuffed by both Davila and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.>

<Another day, another turn in the ongoing battle between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and The Walt Disney Company.

It’s been quite the saga between Florida and Disney, all stemming from a political boycott of The Walt Disney Company due to former Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, criticizing the Florida Parental Rights in Education law (otherwise called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill).

Disney filed a lawsuit back on April 26, suing Ron DeSantis, claiming “a targeted campaign of government retaliation,” and now, there’s a twist in the continuing Disney legal news.

In an unexpected update, Disney today, May 16, has asked a Florida court to dismiss a lawsuit by Governor DeSantis’ handpicked board of supervisors.

We’ve seen some major drama in the last few weeks between the Florida Governor and Disney executives, with the governor fulfilling his promise to remove Walt Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District before being quietly outsmarted by Disney.

Since 1967, the Walt Disney World Resort had been able to reside in Florida unregulated. Reedy Creek allowed Disney to act with the same authority as a county government. Local taxpayers – residents of Orange County and Osceola County – did not have to pay for building or maintaining Disney’s essential services.

The feud has escalated beyond the boardroom into the courtroom and now a new twist has fueled speculation that the Disney vs. DeSantis battle will affect the Florida Governor’s Presidential chances.

Disney Lawsuit Drama

Let’s look at the details. A board appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to oversee government services at the Walt Disney World Resort voted on April 26 to nullify two agreements that gave Disney control over the 25,000-acre property.

The former Reedy Creek Development board had signed its power back to Disney before leaving office, a binding declaration that didn’t expire until England’s new King Charles III’s ancestors die out. The agreement severely handicapped the new Ron DeSantis-appointed Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board.

Almost immediately, Disney filed a lawsuit against Governor DeSantis and the Central Florida Tourism Board. Disney claimed that they were being targeted simply for exercising their First Amendment right.

But then, just days later, the Central Florida Tourism Board announced that they were suing Disney in return. The board claimed they were battling Disney’s aim to maintain control, which “went against the will of Florida voters” and would not stand up in court.

The New Twist

A week after The Central Florida Tourism Board countersued Disney, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that now voids the agreements Disney made with the old Reedy Creek board.

Because Florida Governor DeSantis signed that bill, Disney has asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the new board. Disney claims that, because of the new law, the board’s lawsuit is moot. As per a CNBC report:

Disney on Tuesday asked a Florida court to dismiss a lawsuit by the board of supervisors that Gov. Ron DeSantis had handpicked to oversee Walt Disney World’s operations.

The court filing argues that the lawsuit has been rendered moot after DeSantis signed a bill that voided Disney’s development deals, which are at now at the center of the long-running conflict between Disney and the Republican governor.

By signing that legislation, DeSantis essentially carried out the same action that the board is asking the court to take, Disney argued.

In Disney’s most recent motion, the company defended its deals with the board, claiming that when “faced with a newly hostile state administration,” Disney tried to protect its investments in central Florida. Disney said in a motion:

Just over a year ago, Disney expressed a political view that Governor DeSantis did not like. In response, the Governor unleashed a campaign of retaliation, weaponizing the power of government to punish Disney for its protected speech.

In a statement to CNBC, a spokesman for the special tax district that the board oversees said, “This motion by Disney is entirely predictable and an acknowledgment they know they will lose this case.”

During a shareholders meeting earlier this month, Disney CEO Bob Iger called Florida’s actions retaliatory as well as “anti-business” and “anti-Florida.” Adding taxes and tolls to Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom brought significant criticism to the DeSantis board.

<In what has become a predictable cycle, policymakers meet under pressure to raise the “debt ceiling,” the legal limit on the amount of debt the federal government can accumulate. In spite of the frequency with which this situation occurs, discussion around the debt ceiling is often shrouded in confusion.

Why does the United States have a debt ceiling, and what does it mean to raise it? How have debt-limit negotiations changed over time? What would happen if the debt limit is breached?

Raising the debt limit is a matter of paying bills that we’ve already incurred. Here are the facts:

The U.S. government is in constant need of borrowing resulting from the contemporary trend of running federal deficits. When the government spends more than it collects in revenues (and thus runs a federal budget deficit), it needs to borrow to make up the difference. The government borrows by selling bonds to investors around the world. While the deficit measures the amount of borrowing the government does over a set period, typically a year, the debt is the sum of all accumulated borrowing, less repayment, that the government has done up to a given point in time.

The federal government has run a budget deficit every year since the 1970s with the sole exception of the four years between 1998-2001. The annual deficit exceeded $1 trillion in 2009 in the midst of the Great Recession. More recently, the COVID pandemic sharply raised the need for federal spending. This came on the heels of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which had lowered government revenues. As a result, the U.S. government deficit surpassed $3 trillion in fiscal year 2020, $2.7 trillion in FY2021 and $1.3 trillion in FY2022 (see here). The necessary consequence of this deficit spending is a continual need to borrow.

Why do we have a debt ceiling? The Constitution granted Congress the powers to tax, borrow, and spend. Until World War I, every issuance of federal government debt explicitly required presidential and congressional approval. During the war, however, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress eliminated that rule and created an overall limit to make it easier to finance the mobilization. Hence the debt ceiling was born.

Since then, Democratic and Republican presidents and Congresses have raised or suspended the debt ceiling more than 100 times, including more than 78 times since 1960 and about once a year in this century. (Suspending the debt ceiling, or temporarily allowing the Treasury to supersede it, was relatively rare in the debt ceiling’s history. However, Congress has suspended the debt limit seven times since 2013 — most recently between August 2019 and September 2021.) It happens under Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses and, so far, has always been passed or suspended when that was the needed action.

Voters often assume — and lawmakers often assert — that a vote to raise the debt ceiling is a vote for new spending programs. In fact, raising the debt limit is about paying for past choices, and debt limit debates are about whether Congress should authorize the government to borrow to pay for spending that it has previously authorized.

The U.S. government cannot spend any money without congressional approval. Essentially, Congress requires the government to spend a certain amount of money but, at the time of passage, does not necessarily also authorize the government to raise the funds needed to pay for the program. So, while the rhetoric around raising the debt ceiling centers around “fiscal responsibility” and disciplining federal spending, these discussions should in reality have taken place before legislation that results in increased government spending or reduced government revenue is approved.

Gross debt vs. net debt: The debt ceiling applies to a concept that has no economic meaning. For historical and legal reasons, the debt limit applies to what is called “gross debt,” the sum of net debt plus intragovernmental debt. Net debt is what the government owes the public — including investors, pension funds, and domestic or foreign central banks — and it is the measure that economists consider to be important (see chart). Intragovernmental debt is simply what one part of the government owes another.

An example is money held in government-owned trust funds, like the Social Security Trust Fund. Because it is akin to your right pocket owing your left pocket money, intragovernmental debt has no economic content. By extension, then, gross debt is a legal concept that has no economic significance....>

<....Sadly, the popular discussion sometimes focuses on “gross debt.” (Anyone who uses the “$31 trillion” figure is referring to gross debt. Even Manhattan’s national debt clock focuses on gross debt. That’s a mistake.)

The gross debt measure is such a misleading concept that if, for example, the Social Security Trust Fund runs a surplus — that is, when program receipts exceed program costs in a given year — gross debt increases. This happens because the Social Security Trust Fund sends the surplus to the Treasury Department and, in return, it receives bonds from the Treasury (which counts as gross government debt). By investing in these bonds, Social Security benefits have another way to be paid if (and when), in future years, the Trust Fund runs a deficit. Bonds could be redeemed from the Trust Fund, and the Treasury would return some of what it “owes” to Social Security in the process.

In the meantime, accounting definitions for “gross debt” say that the assets Social Security receives (bonds) are exactly offset by the new “intragovernmental debt” that Treasury faces. Similar patterns apply to other government trust funds.

What would happen if the debt ceiling were not raised? If government debt reaches its statutory limit, the U.S. Treasury Department can typically use any of several accounting gimmicks known as “extraordinary measures” to postpone the day of reckoning. But these typically last only a few months, and then the government would have to default on interest payments or other obligations such as military pay, tax refunds, or safety net payments.

The economic consequences of a large-scale, intentional default are unknown, but predictions range from the merely bad to the truly catastrophic. Even flirting with default can create uncertainty, hurt the economy, and drive up interest rates and government costs. In 1979, a computer error triggered an inadvertent default on a small batch of Treasury securities, and spooked investors enough to raise interest rates that the Treasury was required to pay — the mistaken default cost the government about $50 billion (in today’s dollars) in higher interest payments.

Debt limit negotiations can become quite contentious, especially of late. The debt limit showdown in 2011, exacerbated by the drive of newly elected Tea Party members, is just one example of the bitter partisanship becoming commonplace in fiscal policy making. Prominent conservatives at the time threatened to block any debt limit increases and let the government default. While they may have sought to improve their bargaining position, they were playing with fire.

As noted by Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, it was the first time a solvent democracy flirted with default simply out of political stubbornness. At the same time, the Obama administration thought that the threat of the debt ceiling could make it easier to pass unpopular measures to help address the long term fiscal situation (for instance by cutting spending on entitlement programs by raising the retirement age or adjusting the inflation measure of Social Security) and that they could do that in exchange for raising taxes on the rich....>

<....The debt ceiling showdown of 2011 is estimated to have cost taxpayers $18.9 billion over 10 years.

Although U.S. policymakers eventually raised the debt limit in 2011, another confrontation took place in 2013. Republicans refused to raise the debt ceiling unless policymakers enacted legislation to address long-term deficits, though the Republicans had proposed no such legislation. Facing enormous public pressure, Republicans relented, and the debt ceiling was “suspended” for about four months.

These high-stakes negotiations had a cost. The debt ceiling showdown of 2011 is estimated to have cost taxpayers $1.3 billion during that fiscal year and $18.9 billion over 10 years. Similarly, as the debt ceiling deadline approached in 2013, interest rates on government debt spiked as investors started to believe that the country faced a real threat of default.

There are other factors that make risking defaulting on government debt a bad policy option. First, default is unconstitutional, as the Fourteenth Amendment states that “the validity of the public debt…shall not be questioned.” Second, it would not solve the long-term fiscal problem — it would do nothing to help us pay for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the future. Third, it would actually make the long-term fiscal problem worse by raising the price of future borrowing.

What it all means

Politicians are playing with fire when they refuse to raise the debt ceiling, especially given the key role that U.S. debt plays in the world financial system, and the benefit the federal government gets from being able to pay low interest rates on its debt relative to other assets.

Raising the debt limit has nothing to do with controlling future spending or raising the taxes necessary to pay for future spending; it’s just a matter of paying bills that Congress already approved. The debate about spending more or accumulating more debt implicitly occurred (or should have explicitly occurred) when policymakers voted to raise spending or cut taxes in the first place. While it is difficult to predict the precise magnitude and composition of the economic effects of a default, it is clear they would not be good.

At the broadest level, creating a politically manufactured crisis that threatens the full faith and credit standing of government debt hardly seems like a smart or patriotic thing to do. For all of these reasons, the idea of lawmakers willfully defaulting on our debt by not raising the debt limit is alarming and something to avoid.>

<1 Durham Report is in. After four years, review of 1 million documents, 490 interviews, his conclusion is that FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation (PI) instead of a full investigation (FI) in 2016.

2 The only difference between FI and PI is the duration and the authorities that may be used. This is a hairsplitting quibble, and one on which FBI officials routinely disagree.

3 Durham also minimizes the reasons FBI was alarmed enough to open a FI in 2016 based on information received from Australian diplomats about Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.

4 According to Aussies, Papadopoulos said, “Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia that it could assist this process with the anonymous release of information during the campaign that would be damaging to Mrs Clinton.”

5 Papadopoulos’s statement came right after the DNC hack. FBI was properly concerned about Russia’s efforts to influence the presidential election. This was an investigation into RUSSIA.

6 Trump had other concerning ties to Russians: real estate deals, Miss Universe Pageant, loans from Russian lenders, Trump Tower Moscow project. Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort had lobbied for pro-Russian oligarchs.

7 Trump campaign members also had ties to Russia. Mike Flynn was paid $45,000 by Russia Today in 2015 for a speech he gave at a banquet where he sat next to Putin. He later lied to FBI about his calls with the Russian ambassador about sanctions during the transition.

8 Carter Page had been seen meeting with Russian intel officers. It now appears that he was unaware that they were trying to recruit him. Papadopoulos worked to set up a meeting with Putin.

9 Durham criticizes the FBI for relying on the Steele Dossier for the Carter Page FISA. Steele Dossier was not the basis for opening the investigation, but it makes for a useful scapegoat to blur that fact.

10 We now know FBI was unable to corroborate the Steele Dossier, which contained explosive details about Russian kompromat on Trump. That’s 20/20 hindsight. And, importantly, Durham never says the information in it was false, just unconfirmed.

11 In fact, some aspects of Steele Dossier were confirmed by Mueller and DNI: Putin favored Trump and was working to influence the election in Trump’s favor and against Clinton. It also contained unconfirmed information that could have seriously compromised Trump as president.

12 Failing to investigate these ties would have been a breach of duty by FBI. This was an investigation into RUSSIA. Russia was the threat and the focus. Trump was just Russia’s useful idiot.

13 Page FISA also was based on an e-mail altered by an FBI lawyer. That lawyer was identified by IG, not Durham, and he was properly convicted for making false statements. Mueller disregarded all aspects of Page FISA.

14 In addition to criticizing the FBI for opening a FI instead of a PI, Durham also ignores other facts and helps advance the narrative that the Russia investigation was a hoax.

15 Like Barr, Durham says Mueller found no conspiracy between Trump and Russia but fails to mention the 2016 Trump Tower meeting to receive dirt on Clinton, sharing of polling data with Russian intel officer Konstantin Kilimnik, and coordinating of messaging with Wikileaks.

16 Durham also ignores Trump’s public statement, “Russia, if you’re listening …” asking them to find Clinton’s missing emails, and the subsequent release of hacked emails hours after the release of the Access Hollywood tape.

17 The result of Durham’s four-year investigation is two failed prosecutions of bit players outside of government and a recommendation for FBI to hire someone to oversee their FISA work.

18 But the Durham Report provides fuel for the false claim that the Russia probe was a hoax. Don’t fall for it. While Mueller found no conspiracy, he concluded that Russia worked to help Trump become president.

19 And rather than report Russia’s overtures to FBI, Trump’s campaign was willing to accept the help.

<Donald Trump Has Lashed Out at Evangelicals – Is He Trying to Lose 2024?: When historians look back at the fall of Donald Trump, they likely won't be able to pinpoint one particular moment.

Still, his comments about evangelicals a few months back will likely be remembered for years to come.

The disgraced former president questioned the loyalty of what had been his most crucial allies.

In an interview with the Real America's Voice program earlier in the year "The Water Cooler," Trump was asked about his thoughts on why evangelical leaders expressed hesitance to support him in his bid to seek re-election.

"I don't really care," the former president replied during his interview with David Brody of the Trump-aligned right-wing news and opinion channel. "It's a sign of disloyalty."

Donald Trump apparently forgets that loyalty is something that is earned through actions and that elected officials aren't guaranteed it.

According to reports, even his most trusted advisors are accusing him of alienating what had been one of his most prized voting blocs.

Power Players

Even as their power has waned in recent years, evangelical Christians remain crucial voters for Republicans – a point noted in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's recent re-election where he won by a landslide thanks to the turnout from the bloc.

This group also proved to be a difference for Trump in 2016, just as its low turnout in 2000 almost ended up in a victory for Al Gore over George W. Bush. Four years later, Bush easily won reelection thanks to evangelicals.

The truth is that evangelicals may not vote for President Joe Biden – or any Democrat for that matter – but if 2020 was any indication, Trump would need every vote he can get. Thus if evangelicals opt to sit out the election entirely, as many did in 2000, then Trump can't make up the difference with another group.

Politics is too much of a numbers game to throw away any bloc. Yet, instead of trying to be conciliatory or making any attempt to mend bridges, Trump went on the attack against the evangelicals in his interview.

"There's great disloyalty in the world of politics, and that's a sign of disloyalty because nobody … has ever done more for 'right to life' than Donald Trump," the former president insisted.

"I put three Supreme Court justices who all voted, and they got something they've been fighting for 64 years or many, many years," Trump said. "And nobody thought they could win it. They won — Roe v. Wade — they won. They finally won."

Trump needs either a history or math lesson, as the landmark Roe v. Wade of the U.S. Supreme Court – in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to choose to have an abortion – was decided on January 22, 1973, fifty years ago this month.

Is Donald Trump Right or Wrong? Disloyal or Realistic?

As for the actual "disloyalty," it came down to their failure to turn out enough in the mid-terms, where nearly all of the Trump-backed candidates went down in defeat. Yet, as noted, DeSantis did win by a landslide.

Perhaps it isn’t disloyalty, but reality, and evangelical leaders know not to bet on a loser.

The former president announced that he was formally running for president last year at an event hosted in his Mar-a-Lago club and estate.>

<During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on "left wing violence" on Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) claimed that "we experienced some left-wing extremism of our own" as the hearing was underway.

Greene said that a left-wing group of protesters were arrested outside the hearing room. "You kinda can't even make this up," Greene said, claiming that "George Soros funded" the protest outside.

Greene went on to say that since members at the hearing brought up the subject of white supremacy, she wanted to point out that the real white supremacists are people who support abortion, since "20 million Black babies" have been aborted in America "since Roe vs Wade."

As Greene was speaking, an expert witness at the hearing -- executive director of Integrity First for America Amy Spitalnick -- apparently began to laugh, which clearly angered Greene.

"Is this funny to you?" Greene asked. "Is babies being murdered in the womb funny to you? Because you're smirking and laughing at me right now."

"What's not funny are the Black people and Hispanic people and Jewish people and Muslim people who have been murdered in synagogues, in church, in supermarkets, in mosques, by white supremacists," witness Amy Spitalnick replied.>

She is clearly unfamiliar with the ancient adage that one should keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, rather than open it and remove all doubt.

<The Left’s original conspiracy theory finally came crashing down Monday night with the release of special counsel John Durham’s report on the FBI’s handling of Trump-Russia collusion allegations. The GOP electorate, however, was vindicated.

The report comes after a nearly four year probe into how the FBI initiated and executed its investigation of the Trump administration, known internally as operation Crossfire Hurricane. The probe has been exhaustively reported on over these past four years, with revelations about the sourcing of the infamous Steele dossier and how it was used to justify surveillance of the Trump campaign slowly dripping out in increments. Throughout this time, the Left has derided any allegation of wrong-doing on the part of intelligence agencies as a rabid, conservative fever dream. However, Durham’s final report shows that all of the individual developments coalesce into a larger picture: this so-called conservative fever dream is in fact a reality.

Ultimately, the core finding of the report confirms what conservatives have suspected all along—that “neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement” of the investigation; that “certain personnel” (i.e. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) investigating Trump had a “predisposition” to do so; and that the standard used to open an investigation into Trump was a “noticeable departure” from the standard used against Hillary Clinton.

Durham did not mince words in the report. “The objective facts show that the FBI’s handling of important aspects of the Crossfire Hurricane matter were seriously deficient,” he firmly stated, explaining that the FBI used “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” as a basis of the Trump investigation.

He continued by placing the blame for the loss of confidence in the FBI squarely at the agency’s own feet: “As the more complete record now shows, there are specific areas of Crossfire Hurricane activity in which the FBI badly underperformed and failed, not only in its duties to the public, but also in preventing the severe reputational harm that has befallen the FBI as a consequence of Crossfire Hurricane.”

Even the corporate press, which for years covered for the intelligence agencies, had to admit the gravity of the situation. The Hill reported that Durham’s report issued a “scathing assessment of the FBI’s process,” while CNN issued an uncharacteristically spin-free headline on Durham’s core finding that the “FBI never should have launched” the full collusion investigation. Unfortunately, the press will never admit a complete failure on their part, but will continue to uphold the narrative where they can. Much of the reporting emphasized that Durham recommended no new criminal charges be filed and that his findings were at odds with previous investigations, before getting into the meat of the damning, core conclusion....>

<....This was wholly predictable, however. As time goes on, the Left, including the entire corporate press, will focus more on haggling over the semantics in the report rather than addressing its key points. Perhaps this is a calculated strategy to protect their own reputation after years of being willing dupes of the intelligence agencies. Perhaps they are less calculated and merely trying to insulate their egos. Either way, it is clear that journalistic truth has not been a priority for quite some time and it is unlikely to become so anytime soon.

Furthermore, their audience is unlikely to hold them to account. While the legacy media cares mostly about ratings and protecting their own status, their audience cares mostly about maintaining the steady diet of moral superiority they have been fed since Trump walked down the golden escalator in 2015. Neither will ever admit that Trump might have been right.

But for once, the miasmatic media environment is not fully to blame. Most reading or writing the headlines were just going along to get along; they had no real say in or understanding of what got reported. Those who initiated the investigation and developed the narrative–the intel officials, key Democratic party leaders and strategists, and media executives–are to blame. They are the handful of nefarious actors who consciously made the choice to lead America down the path of division and destruction. These are the very same people who are now attempting to whip Americans into a frenzy over so-called “voter suppression.” Yet they are the ones who suppressed the vote in 2020 and are attempting to do it again in 2024.

By portraying Trump as a Russian asset for years on end–an allegation they knew was false–they waged informational warfare on the American public in pursuit of domestic power. Virtually every power center in America–from media to academia, and pop culture to big business–echoed this claim based on the authoritative legitimacy of those proclaiming it. In 2020, this resulted in the effective disenfranchisement of untold millions of moderate voters who likely would have voted differently if they had not pushed into a delusional hatred of Trump under egregiously false pretenses.

This is the true legacy of the Trump-Russia collusion story. The truth has finally come to light, but it must not become just another headline in the 24 hour news cycle. Americans must dwell on it, they must reflect, or it will happen again.>

Source: Daily Beast

"The Crime of the CENTURY!"