Category: Latest News

Trump has cut off Rudy Giuliani, and is annoyed that he asked to be paid for his work on challenging the election, book says

Donald Trump’s family has cut off Rudy Giuliani, and the former president has been irked that the lawyer asked to be paid for his work challenging Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, a new book says.

On Sunday, The Times of London published an excerpt from “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” the coming book on the Trump presidency from the author Michael Wolff.

In the extract, Wolff delves into Trump’s postpresidential life at his Mar-a-Lago resort and describes Trump as frustrated by the lack of progress in his quest to overturn the 2020 election result. Continue reading.

‘The epitome of hypocrisy’: 17 Tennessee Republicans accepted PPP loans — but want to slash unemployment benefits

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, liberal economists such as Robert Reich (former secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration) and the New York Times’ Paul Krugman have applauded enhanced unemployment benefits as good for the U.S. economy — stressing that those who receive that money are likely to spend it immediately. Republicans, however, have been claiming that enhanced unemployment benefits from the CARES Act of 2020 or the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 encourage Americans not to look for work. But in Tennessee, according to reporter Jackie DelPilar, some of the same Republicans who now rail against unemployment benefits received payments from the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program.

Reporting for Fox 17 Nashville, DelPilar explains, “A FOX 17 News investigation found 17 state lawmakers who supported the unemployment cuts also accepted PPP loans for their businesses. They accepted a combined $12.4 million.”

Rep. Gloria Johnson, a Democrat who serves in the Tennessee House of Representatives, is calling out the hypocrisy of those lawmakers. DelPilar quotes Johnson as saying, “That’s wrong on so many levels…. It is the epitome of hypocrisy to say ‘I’m going to get this federal help, but you don’t deserve it. You need to go back to work.'” Continue reading.

Pew’s Validated Post-Election Poll Details Biden’s 2020 Win

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Overall participation in the 2020 election among U.S. adults rose seven points from 2016 to reach 66 percent last year. A new analysis of validated voters from Pew Research Center (which provides a bigger, more reliable sample than exit polls) built on several of the 2020 trends that have already been reported. Here’re some of the key takeaways:

New 2020 Voters

One in 4 voters in 2020, or 25 percent, had not voted in 2016. About six percent of those new 2020 voters turned out in 2018, spiking participation in that midterm election. And voters who turned out in 2018 after skipping the 2016 presidential election were about twice as likely to back Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020.

But the 19 percent of new voters who came out in 2020 after skipping both 2016 and the midterms divided up almost evenly among Biden and Trump, 49 percent-47 percent. However, what was most notable about that group of new 2020 voters was the age disparity, writes Pew: Continue reading.

A former Fox exec blasted the network for peddling Trump’s election-fraud claims and airing anti-mask comments, saying he knows Rupert Murdoch doesn’t buy into its coverage

A former Fox executive has blasted Fox News, saying that not even the network’s longtime proprietor Rupert Murdoch believes its coverage.

In an op-ed published Sunday by The Daily Beast, Preston Padden, who served as president of network distribution at the Fox Broadcasting Company for seven years, wrote that Fox News is a TV channel “that no reasonable person would believe.”

Padden wrote that Fox News had perpetuated former President Donald Trump’s “wild and false claims” that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that Fox’s decision to question masks had contributed to “the unnecessary deaths of many Americans” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading.

Tucker Carlson says the NSA is spying on him. Is that even plausible?

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It’s highly unlikely, but it’s possible if the Fox host was speaking, knowingly or not, to foreigners under surveillance.

WASHINGTON — Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said this week that the National Security Agency is spying on him as part of a plan to knock his show “off the air.”

The NSA promptly denied the allegations, saying it focuses exclusively on “foreign targets.” Critics dismissed Carlson’s claim as a cynical attempt to rile up his conservative viewers who have made him the most watched host on cable news.

But is there any way that Carlson’s allegations are true, or partially accurate? Continue reading.

‘Inherently un-American mindset’: Sen. Josh Hawley’s home state paper has a dire warning about the GOP’s path

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In honor of Independence Day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board, known for its deep criticism of its own Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), published a piece warning the Republican Party about the dangers of its path. 

While many people have different perspectives on the true meaning of patriotism and independence, the publication aimed to stress the importance of preserving the nation’s “fundamental principles”; the same principles Republicans are eroding with their partisan policies.

“For all their faults (particularly on matters of race), America’s founders were able to look past the authoritarian systems of monarchy and empire in their time, and envision a form of government in which the people ruled themselves, via their elected representatives. Inherent in that radical idea was the expectation that citizens whose preferred candidates failed to win elections would accept the judgment of the constitutional process. Democracy may well be, as Winston Churchill put it, the worst form of government except for all the others, but it is the only legitimate form of government, warts and all.” Continue reading.

Try and try again: GOP tests out myriad attacks on Biden

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Republicans are testing out a myriad of attacks against President Biden, trying to turn public opinion against a popular president among key sectors of the electorate in hopes of boosting their chances in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond.

Republicans have blamed Biden’s economic agenda for rising inflation and criticized him over the flow of migrants at the southern border. They have also recycled attacks from the 2020 election, raising questions about Biden’s mental fitness and trying to tie him to the “defund the police” movement and the left wing of the Democratic party.

The approach has prompted criticism among some who say Republicans need to adopt a more unified message. Republicans also fret that some of the criticisms of Biden aren’t believable and say the party needs to focus on more credible attack lines. Continue reading.

Trump appears to acknowledge tax schemes while questioning whether alleged violations are crimes

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Former president Donald Trump lashed out at Manhattan prosecutors Saturday night for indicting his organization and its chief financial officer for tax fraud, calling it “prosecutorial misconduct” in his most extensive comments on the charges since they were unsealed Thursday.

As Trump criticized the investigation, he appeared to acknowledge the tax schemes while questioning whether the alleged violations were in fact crimes.

“They go after good, hard-working people for not paying taxes on a company car,” he said at a rally in Sarasota, Fla. “You didn’t pay tax on the car or a company apartment. You used an apartment because you need an apartment because you have to travel too far where your house is. You didn’t pay tax. Or education for your grandchildren. I don’t even know. Do you have to? Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?” Continue reading.

Woman Afraid of Vaccine Side Effects Dies From Delta Variant: ‘I Couldn’t Convince Her’

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A woman in Missouri was afraid of the side effects from COVID-19 vaccines and chose not to get the shots, but later contracted the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus and died in the hospital.

Deborah Carmichael, the mother of now-deceased 45-year-old Tricia Jones, is speaking out and urging those hesitant about the vaccine to get the jab after losing her daughter in June. She spoke to Kansas City’s news channel Fox 4 WDAF-TV about her daughter’s death and vaccine hesitancy in an interview broadcast this week.

“She was afraid of the side effects, I think. You hear a lot of horror stories. I, myself, when I had the shot, it was rough, so it scared her and freaked her out. So she didn’t want to do it. I couldn’t convince her,” Carmichael told the Missouri news channel. Continue reading.

Eric Trump gets pilloried after giving away the game about the Trump Org indictment on live TV

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The Trump Organization and its Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg found themselves in hot water this week when the Manhattan DA revealed an indictment alleging a pattern of criminal financial conduct dating back more than a decade.

While it comes as no surprise that the Trump Organization remains a major topic of discussion today, legal experts, observers, and Twitter users are also puzzled by the public comments about the matter from one person who probably should have been silent: Eric Trump.

Under normal circumstances, people under the heat of criminal investigation are well-advised to refrain from making any remarks about the matter. But the former president’s son didn’t heed that counsel. Continue reading.