U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

'Nothing off the table': Ron Wyden says subpoena possible for billionaire Harlan Crow



U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Tuesday said that "nothing is off the table"— including a subpoena — after a lawyer for Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow continued to duck questions about the billionaire's gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his relatives.

In a June 2 letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Crow attorney Michael Bopp expressed "respect" for the panel's "important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system," while stating that he would "welcome a discussion with your staff."

However, Bopp also reiterated his assertion that "Congress does not have the power to impose ethics standards on the Supreme Court" and "therefore cannot mount an investigation for the purpose of helping craft such standards."

"It comes as little surprise that Mr. Crow is doubling down on bogus legal theories as he continues to stonewall basic questions about his gifts to Clarence Thomas and his family."

Thomas and Crow have repeatedly refused to answer questions about years of gifts—including luxury vacations and private school tuition—to the right-wing justice and members of his family.

In response to Bopp's assertion—which has been roundly refuted by Durbin and legal experts—Wyden, a progressive Oregon Democrat, accused the Gibson Dunn partner of "stonewalling."

"It comes as little surprise that Mr. Crow is doubling down on bogus legal theories as he continues to stonewall basic questions about his gifts to Clarence Thomas and his family. If anything, the most recent letter from his attorney raises more questions than it answers," the senator said in a statement.

"The letter states, 'charter rates or reimbursements at rates prescribed by law were paid to the Crow family entities' with zero additional detail that could help clarify these financial arrangements, such as exactly who made those payments for Justice Thomas' extravagant luxury travel, and how many times and in what amounts those payments were made," Wyden continued.

"Far too often, efforts to investigate real-life tax practices of the ultra-wealthy and powerful end with this kind of vague, carefully-worded assurance that everything is on the level. That's simply not good enough," he argued. "This is exactly why the Finance Committee is pursuing this matter as part of its broader review of gift and estate tax practices of ultra-high net worth individuals."

Wyden added: "I've already begun productive discussions with the Finance Committee on next steps to compel answers to our questions from Mr. Crow, including by subpoena, and those discussions will continue."

https://www.rawstory.com/harlan-crow-2661028889/



Harlan Crow’s lawyer agrees to meet with Senate Judiciary members



Following a series of bombshell reports by ProPublica, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been investigating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' relationship with billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow. In May, Crow declined an invitation to meet with Committee members. But according to Reuters, a letter released on Tuesday, June 6 shows that Crow's attorney, Michael Bopp, has offered to meet with them.

Thomas' relationship with Crow became a major controversy on April 6, when ProPublica reported that for "over 20 years," Thomas had "been treated to luxury vacations" by the Republican donor — and failed to disclose those trips. Then, on April 13, ProPublica reported that Crow had purchased property from Thomas, and the justice had not reported that either.

On May 4, ProPublica reported that Crow made tuition payments when Thomas' grandnephew attended a private boarding school.

In response to these reports, progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has been calling for Thomas' impeachment. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has urged the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Thomas.

But Thomas and Crow have maintained that there is nothing inappropriate about their relationship.

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, have said that the Thomas/Crow relationship underscores the need for a formal Supreme Court code of ethics. Their request to meet with Crow, however, was merely a request and not a subpoena.

In a letter dated Monday, June 5, Reuters reports, Bopp "reiterated that he does not think the Committee has the power to request information from Crow or to impose ethics standards on the nation's top judicial body, as it is considering pursuing."

Bopp said that "we respect the Senate Judiciary Committee's important role in formulating legislation concerning our federal courts system, and would welcome a discussion with your staff."

Reuters notes, "Unlike other federal judges, Supreme Court justices are not bound by the code of conduct adopted by the policymaking body for the broader U.S. judiciary that requires federal judges to avoid even the 'appearance of impropriety.'"

Read More Here: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lawyer-billionaire-linked-us-justice-thomas-offers-meet-senate-staff-2023-06-06/

[Rick Plant]

Biden to seek more than $2.8 billion from Congress for ‘cancer moonshot’



WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is asking Congress for more than $2.8 billion in the federal budget he’s sending to Capitol Hill on Thursday to help advance his cancer-fighting goals.

More than half of the money, $1.7 billion, would go to the Department of Health and Human Services to support the Democratic president’s cancer initiatives across an array of departments and agencies, according to White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details with The Associated Press before Biden formally unveiled his spending blueprint on Thursday in Philadelphia.

The funding request would support a “cancer moonshot’ initiative Biden announced last year with the goal of cutting cancer death rates in half over the next 25 years. Biden aims to help close gaps in cancer screenings, better understand and address environmental and toxic exposures associated with certain cancers, and reduce the effects of preventable cancers, such as those linked to tobacco and poor nutrition. The initiative also spends money on cutting-edge research and resources to support patients and their caregivers.

The “moonshot” program was launched in 2016 by President Barack Obama and led by his vice president — Biden. As president, Biden resurrected the initiative last year.

Cancer is personal for Biden and his wife, Jill, as the disease is for millions of people in the United States who have been diagnosed with cancer or have lost loved ones to various forms of the disease. Both the president and the first lady this year had lesions removed from their skin that were determined to be basal cell carcinoma, a common and easily treated form of cancer.

In 2015, the Bidens’ eldest son, Beau, died of an aggressive brain cancer at age 46.

While Biden’s budget is unlikely to clear Congress untouched, fighting cancer is an issue that Biden hopes can find bipartisan support.

Cancer is among four issues that Biden made part of a “unity agenda” he announced in his 2022 State of the Union address. Veterans, drug abuse and mental health are the other issues. Congress last year passed numerous pieces of legislation to address aspects of the agenda.

In recognition of March as National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, the White House on Friday was hosting a discussion with government officials and others on improving outcomes for this particular form of cancer.

Excluding some skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the fourth most-common cancer in men and women and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Featured speakers will include Simone Ledward Boseman, the widow of “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 at age 43 after a four-year battle with colon cancer, and NBC News anchor Craig Melvin, who lost an older brother to the same disease, also at age 43.

Separately on Friday, Jill Biden was scheduled to visit the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans with U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and his wife, Laura, to talk about the president’s cancer budget request and highlight the importance of colorectal cancer screenings. The Cassidys are medical doctors.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-to-seek-more-than-2-8-billion-from-congress-for-cancer-moonshot



President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Cancer Moonshot and the Goal of Ending Cancer as we Know It

Watch:

[Richard Smith]

One of the strongest pools of Republican candidates in history.  Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Pence, and Haley.  What a contrast to the Dem clown show. 

[Rick Plant]

'Actively rooting for Trump to go down': Insider says many Republicans are hoping for indictment



Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig told MSNBC Tuesday that she's spoken to many Republicans who "actively rooting" for Donald Trump to go down.

Host Nicolle Wallace wondered if former Attorney General Bill Barr would have revealed information to Special Counsel Jack Smith about what he knew regarding the classified documents scandal. But, instead of answering the question, Leonnig explained that Barr is "emblematic" of other Republicans in the party.

"Claire [McCaskill] correctly describes as, you know, the old-school Republicans, and maybe some are rejoining it, maybe some are newly joining it, whatever," Leonnig explained. "But there are many of them that I've spoken to who are actively rooting for Trump to go down in this indictment."

She also explained that some of the Republican lawmakers have inside information that indicates that's exactly what is about to happen.

"And for information that they have either learned from their friends who were at the White House at the time or other evidence they've learned in ways that I can't talk about here, they are citing some of that evidence amongst themselves as incredibly damaging to Donald Trump politically," said Leonnig."

"Again, I'm just using and picking my words carefully. But to say that there is a raft of Republicans, many of whom served Donald Trump, who now are in the camp of 'I know a lot about' — I'm quoting -- I'm paraphrasing them, forgive me — 'I know a lot about what went down here.' And when it all comes out in Jack Smith's speaking indictment, which is what they're hoping for, the public will become aware of Donald Trump in a new way."

She acknowledges that such a statement has been heard before and "everybody thinks he put himself first and didn't give a hoot about the country." Still, this time could be different, she said.

The Trump investigation involves claims he kept classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago home and even talked about them to guests. A report last week claimed there was a recording of him talking about a document that involved plans to attack Iran.

Trump "was willing to put them in public view, outside of their lock and key, in order to try to harm a political enemy, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff," she explained. "And by the way, he was misusing those documents not just because they were classified but he was misdescribing what was in them. At least, that's the evidence we have right now."

Wallace asked for more details about the evidence that the so-called "insiders" know about that will be so harmful to Trump.

The alleged Iran memo from Gen. Mark Milley may not have ever existed, Leonnig said, noting that Milley briefed Trump on the numerous options available that had both pros and cons about each possible action.

"And I think there are a lot of Republicans and insiders who feel that this is emblematic of something Trump did often with classified materials," Leonnig explained. "They were of utility to him personally. And to paraphrase some of their words, 'Damn the country. Damn the country's safety. It was about what helps Donald Trump.'"

What remains to be seen is what Smith has found out about those pieces of Trump's willingness to use classified information for his own means.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Ron DeSantis and the radical right no longer have their phony talking point about murder and crime because both have seen a sharp decline in 2023.

U.S. Murder Rate Down, Especially in Big Cities, Early 2023 Data Show
https://www.davisvanguard.org/2023/06/u-s-murder-rate-down-especially-in-big-cities-early-2023-data-show/


Ron DeSantis Wants You to Be Scared Senseless About Crime (Don’t Be)

Florida’s governor is trying to out-Trump Trump on ‘American Carnage’ panic—but the fact is his state has way more crime than the “woke” cities he decries

SUNSHINE STATE SNOWFLAKE



Ron DeSantis wants you to be worried about crime. The Florida governor has apparently decided that the only way to peel primary voters away from Donald Trump is to be more Trump than Trump. So in truly Trumpian fashion, DeSantis is attacking Trump for the most competent thing the former president did—expediting approval of the COVID vaccine—and the most decent, the First Step Act.

Crime has been Trump’s pet issue since he launched his first campaign. It's an issue he returns to over and over. In his grim “American Carnage” inaugural address, Trump began his presidency with a grotesque vision of a country ravaged by violence.

It wasn't accurate—Trump inherited the lowest homicide rate of any president in 50 years. Perhaps it was aspirational. He was also the first president in 30 years to leave the White House with a higher national homicide rate than when he entered it.

DeSantis appears to be following the same playbook. The policies DeSantis is pushing haven’t mitigated crime in Florida. The state has mostly followed national trends. But when you’re trying to out-Trump Trump, you don’t bother with facts, data, or reality. Your weapon is fear.

We can start with the First Step Act, Trump’s uncharacteristically hopeful and optimistic criminal justice reform bill (which, naturally, he later regretted). DeSantis recently called the law a “jailbreak bill” that “allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now re-offended, and really, really hurt a number of people.”

There's no evidence for any of this. If a significant number of prisoners released under the FSA have gone on to commit new violent or sex crimes, we'd know their names. Their photos would be on the cover of the New York Post, their names emblazoned in Fox News chyrons. So far, the best they can do is Glynn Neal, a man who stabbed a staffer from Sen. Rand Paul’s office shortly after his release from prison.

But Neal would have been released without the FSA. The new law reduced his sentence by a matter of days. I asked the DeSantis campaign for other examples. They did not respond to my request.

In fact, the vast majority of prisoners released early under the FSA would have been released anyway. In most cases, like Neal’s, the law merely expedited their release by a few weeks or months.

"The murder rate in San Francisco is significantly lower than that of the entire state of Florida—an incredible statistic, given that crime is usually more concentrated in cities."

Repealing the First Step Act will actually result in more crime. The thrust of the bill—and most of its funding—is geared toward data-proven programs shown to reduce recidivism. And here the First Step Act has been an unqualified success. The overall recidivism rate among federal prisoners is 43 percent. For those who have benefitted from FSA programs, it's about 16 percent.

Again, the overwhelming majority of those released under the FSA who would have been released even without the law. But their rate of reoffending dropped by two-thirds.

If DeSantis succeeds in repealing the FSA, it seems logical that the recidivism rate among those who would have benefitted from the law will go back to what it is for federal prisoners in general. And that means more crime, not less.

DeSantis is also one-upping Trump on immigration.

Trump sought to punish “sanctuary cities,” despite warnings from police chiefs and groups like the International Association of Chiefs of Police that vigorous enforcement would result in immigrants fearing police, which would lead to less cooperation, which would lead to more crime. Trump waged federal raids in many of those cities anyway. As predicted, trust between immigrant communities and police in those cities broke down, those communities were less willing to cooperate with police, and that brought more crime.

DeSantis hasn’t just exploited anti-immigrant bigotry, he’s managed to be even more performatively cruel about it than Trump, with his much-publicized stunts of luring desperate migrants in Texas onto planes, then dropping them off in other parts of the country—all funded by Florida taxpayers.

DeSantis has also borrowed from Trump’s attempt to weaponize state power. Trump believed federal law enforcement agencies ought to be his personal enforcers. He pushed the FBI and other agencies to investigate and arrest his enemies and of course famously fired FBI director James Comey for refusing to take a loyalty oath. Trump also tried to enlist the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and then even the Pentagon to help him overturn the 2020 election.

Not only has DeSantis not condemned Trump for any of that, he has explicitly criticized those agencies for rebuffing Trump's attempts to corrupt them, and has promised that as president, he’d be better at coercing them to do his bidding.

As governor, DeSantis has already demonstrated his commitment to corrupting law enforcement. Earlier this year he forcibly removed a state’s attorney—Andrew Warren—from office. Warren was among the new breed of progressive prosecutors who “take it upon themselves to determine which laws they like and will enforce and which laws they don’t like and won’t enforce,” DeSantis said, “and the results of this in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have been catastrophic.”

Here, too, reality doesn't support DeSantis’ rhetoric.

The murder rate in San Francisco is significantly lower than that of the entire state of Florida—an incredible statistic, given that crime is usually more concentrated in cities. The murder rate in Los Angeles is significantly lower than major Florida cities like Miami and Tallahassee. And Jacksonville has consistently had the highest murder rate in the state, despite a series of Republican mayors and lead prosecutors.

DeSantis has also repeated the Republican line that crime has soared in blue cities because of “woke” criminal justice policy. That too just isn’t true. In 2020 and 2021, the homicide rate in GOP whipping boy cities like New York and San Francisco was lower than that of nearly every large Republican-run city, including Omaha, Fresno, Tulsa, Colorado Springs, and Oklahoma City.

As for Tampa, the murder rate did go up under Warren’s watch in 2020 and 2021. But it went up just about everywhere. The city still has a lower murder and overall crime rate than nearby St. Petersburg, which has a Republican prosecutor.

In March, a daming New York Times investigation showed just how phony and staged DeSantis’ removal of Warren really was. DeSantis had asked staff to bring him statistics showing that Warren’s policies had contributed to an increase in crime. But his staff couldn't find any such data. That didn’t stop DeSantis from making the accusation, anyway. He just removed the passage from his announcement where he planned to cite statistics. In other words, Warren’s removal was nakedly political.

During the 2020 protests after the murder of George Floyd, Trump sent militarized federal police to cities around the country to break the will of protesters, and despite what the right would like you to think, his administration violently cleared peaceful protesters from a D.C. park so Trump could stage a photo op at a church while clutching a Bible.

DeSantis has shown a willingness to weaponize law enforcement for photo-ops, too. He sent Florida cops out to arrest citizens he alleged had committed “voter fraud”—people who, it turns out, were legitimately confused about the law, and had actually been encouraged by state officials to register to vote. So far, none of those arrests have held up, and some of the law enforcement officials sent to make the arrests seemed embarrassed for participating in the charade.

Donald Trump gave red meat speeches to friendly law enforcement groups, during which he made light of and essentially endorsed police brutality. DeSantis learned from that, too. In the lead-up to the launch of his campaign, DeSantis gave a series of speeches to law enforcement crowds in New York in which he blamed policies like bail and police reform for the city's crime.

Here, too, DeSantis has little data to back up his claims. Like San Francisco, New York City has lower rates of both violent and property crime than the entire state of Florida—again, a remarkable statistic given that more population density tends to correlate with more crime.

"It’s hard to conceive of more brazen attacks on the rule of law than a governor ordering sham arrests for cable news headlines, abusing desperate migrants seeking asylum to ‘own the libs,’ or willfully importing cops with a history of abusing the people they serve.”

If we compare the entire states, the discrepancy only grows. The overall homicide rate in Florida is about 50 percent higher than that of New York state. In Miami, Florida's largest metro area—which has a Republican mayor and a traditional chief prosecutor—the homicide rate is about twice that of New York City. The NYPD also has a significantly higher clearance rate than Miami.

DeSantis wants you to think that woke policies are stopping New York’s cops from doing their jobs. But when it comes to both preventing and solving crimes, New York's city cops perform far better than Florida’s.

And while Trump merely encouraged police brutality, DeSantis one-upped him there, too—he incentivized it. In 2021, the governor announced taxpayer-funded signing bonuses for any police officer who relocated to Florida from cities with what he called “anti-cop” policies. Hundreds of cops have since taken the offer, many of them from NYPD.

The Miami Herald and Daily Dot have since found that dozens of officers who moved to the state under the program have lengthy disciplinary histories, have accumulated multiple citizen complaints ranging from excessive force to racism to sexual misconduct, and have cost their former cities hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits.

One former NYPD officer who accepted DeSantis’ offer had been charged with reckless endangerment after driving his car into a crowd of protesters in the summer of 2020. Another officer lured by the governor’s $6,700 signing bonus has since been charged with domestic abuse after a woman accused him of beating then grabbing her by the hair and choking her when she tried to escape. Still another was arrested and charged with murder after shooting and killing her husband.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. The entire premise of DeSantis’ scheme was to appeal to officers who felt they’d been unfairly disciplined, who wanted to work for departments with less oversight, have fewer rules, and give them more freedom—and felt so strongly about it that they were willing to move to another state.

There’s compelling research suggesting that crime tends to increase as people lose trust in political and criminal justice institutions. The more people believe state power is being manipulated for political ends and that the system is rigged against them, the less likely they are to cooperate with police and trust the courts to fairly mete out justice.

It’s hard to conceive of more brazen attacks on the rule of law than a governor ordering sham arrests for cable news headlines, abusing desperate migrants seeking asylum to “own the libs,” or willfully importing cops with a history of abusing the people they serve.

There is at least one important difference between Trump and DeSantis. While Trump was enormously successful at tapping grievance politics to build a sizable cult of personality, fortunately for all of us he lacked the competence and discipline to implement his more authoritarian impulses.

DeSantis has the opposite problem. He’s shown aptitude at centralizing his power and getting lawmakers to implement some of the most repressive policies in the country, but thus far has been awkward and clumsy on the national campaign trail.

The more voters get to know him, the less they seem to like him. If he manages to find some charisma, he could be a considerable force—and an enormously destructive one.

But there's little reason to think he'll make the country any safer.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ron-desantis-wants-you-to-be-scared-shtless-about-crime-dont-be

[Rick Plant]

Yesterday, the do nothing House Republicans decided to stick it to Kevin McCarthy with an insane floor fight.

After Kevin McCarthy was forced to cave to President Biden over the debt deal in order to appease those House Republicans in swing districts who didn’t want to lose reelection over it, you knew the House Republicans in the far right districts were going to punish McCarthy in some way.

Of course if they ousted McCarthy, they might lose the Speakership altogether, given that there aren’t going to be 218 Republican votes for any other Speaker candidate. So instead House Republicans decided to simply humiliate McCarthy by waging an hour long floor fight over legislation about gas stoves. No, really.

The kicker is that Kevin McCarthy reportedly didn’t see it coming. That’s right, he’s so weak that not only are House Republicans pulling these stunts, he doesn’t even have enough control over his caucus to know that any of it’s coming. This is just humiliating for McCarthy. And he deserves it.

If that wasn't bad enough, MAGA loons Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz publicly threatened McCarthy. Like I said before, these right wingers are not fit to govern.     

Conservatives surprise McCarthy with floor rebellion over debt deal anger
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conservatives-surprise-mccarthy-with-floor-rebellion-over-debt-deal-anger/ar-AA1cdiZK

Watch: https://twitter.com/i/status/1666236113243996163



Moms for Liberty listed as ‘anti-government’ group by extremism watchdog

The ‘parents’ rights’ group has backed book bans and the removal of discussions of race and LGBTQ+ issues in schools



The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has listed the Republican-connected “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” organization in its latest Year in Hate & Extremism report.

In a statement accompanying the report’s release, a spokesperson for the extremism watchdog group wrote that Moms for Liberty was the most prominent of 12 extremist “anti-student inclusion groups” mobilizing to “attack public education, ban books, and remove any curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination, and LGBTQ+ identities”.

The listing puts the group – whose members and endorsees now sit on school boards around the country – in the same category as anti-government organizations like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters and the John Birch Society.

In an emailed response to the Guardian’s request for comment, the Moms for Liberty founders Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice wrote: “Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school – parents or government employees?”

The pair added: “We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.”

Moms for Liberty was co-founded in January 2021 by Descovich and Justice – who had exited central Florida school boards after opposing Covid-19 restrictions at public schools – along with Bridget Ziegler, then in her second term on the Sarasota county school board.

The group soon expanded its campaigning remit to oppose teaching about racism and racist history and LGBTQ+-inclusive policies in public schools, and has since sought to land members and supporters on school board seats.

According to the SPLC report, the group has made its way by “intimidating and harassing teachers and school officials”, battling teachers’ unions, attacking corporations like Disney that are supportive of LGBTQ+ rights, and supporting and making use of laws like Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” statute, which limits classroom discussion of gender and sexual identity.

Moms for Liberty has expanded into a nationwide network of more than 200 branches, and the SPLC now lists each of these branches as an extremist group.

While the group has claimed to be non-partisan, from the beginning it has had close ties to the Republican party, especially in Florida, where it has won the backing of the rightwing governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.

Ziegler’s husband Christian was serving as vice-chairman of the Florida Republican party when she co-founded Moms for Liberty, and in 2021 he reportedly credited the group with getting “20- and 30-year-old females involved with the Republican party”.

In Florida’s 2022 elections, DeSantis made an unprecedented endorsement of a slate of school board candidates, many of whom were members of Moms for Liberty or other radical parents’ groups. In turn, Ziegler and other prominent members of the group offered vocal support for his rhetorical, legal and legislative attacks on diversity and inclusion measures in the state’s public institutions – or what the governor has called “the woke mind virus”.

Elsewhere in the report, the count of active extremist groups is at 1,225, which is not significantly greater than the 2021 count of 1,221. The SPLC attributed the slowed growth to a significant collapse in the militia movement, which accounted for only 61 groups in 2022, down from 92 in 2021, a fact the SPLC said was due to “members and leaders being held accountable for their role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack”.

However, in the statement accompanying the report, the SPLC warned that “hate groups are increasingly engaging in public demonstrations using flyering, marches and banner displays to gain media attention”, with schools in particular emerging as a target not just for radical parents’ groups, but for established hate groups like the Proud Boys.

In a statement, the SPLC president and CEO, Margaret Huang, called such attacks “a concerted effort by hate groups and extremist actors to terrorize communities and gain control of public institutions by any means necessary”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/southern-poverty-law-center-moms-liberty-extremist

[Rick Plant]

Brand new polling is out showing President Biden crushing Trump in Virginia and DeSantis nationwide.

Trump is irrelevant in polling because he is just about to be indicted by the DOJ for espionage and numerous other crimes and then hauled off to prison. 

But these huge numbers for Biden dispels the phony right wing talking points that "Biden isn't popular" or that "he can't win reelection".

Americans overwhelmingly support President Biden's policies which is why he won in 2020 and Democrats had a historic midterm in 2022. And why Democrats continue to win elections in 2023.     

VIRGINIA POLL: Roanoke College

(D) Biden: 54% (+16)
(R) Trump: 38%

2024 Presidential Poll: Echelon Insights

(D) Biden: 51% (+12)
(R) DeSantis: 39%

https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1666096061352677377


The conservative Wall Street Journal reports that border arrests have dropped 70% since Trump's disastrous Title 42 ended which contributed to an unprecedented amount of illegal border crossings.

The ending of that disastrous policy allowed President Biden to implement his own plan which brought tougher rules for asylum seekers and the impressive results speaks for itself.           

The right wing lie of an "open border" under Biden can be finally put to bed, because if there was an "open border" as right wingers were lying to you about, we would still have the same amount of illegal border crossings on this very day. And we do not have that because it's dropped 70% under Biden's new policy.     

That's why we no longer hear the right wing media or right wing politicians whining about "the southern border" or "illegal immigration" because President Biden just cleaned up another Trump disaster by fixing the "Trump Border Crisis" that Trump caused due to his severe incompetence.

This was the guy (Trump) who proclaimed he "would end all illegal immigration". All Trump did was cause a total border crisis and Biden had to wait until the disastrous policy expired until he could implement his own plan that is now working spectacularly. But that didn't stop the radical right for falsely attacking Biden when he inherited Trump's border crisis.   

Just another Trump disaster fixed by Biden and right wingers are now silent as a mouse. That's another Biden win!




Another disaster that Trump handed Joe Biden was an historic murder and crime rate that the right wing media and right wing politicians tried to falsely pin on President Biden.

Under the failed "leadership" of Trump, murders in 2020 were at an all time high right when President Biden took over.

After President Biden implemented his policies through the "American Rescue Plan" which every single Republican voted against, we now see one of the largest drops in the murder rate in history.

Once again, President Joe Biden took on another Trump disaster he was handed and cleaned it up. And right wingers lost another talking point since they can no longer point to high crime falsely trying to blame Biden for what Trump gave him.

Again, that's another Biden win!

Biden cleaned up Trump's economic crisis, job loss crisis, manufacturing crisis, COVID crisis, border crisis, and the historic high murder and crime rate in just 2 1/2 years.

President Biden is truly one of the greatest presidents of all time!     


Jacob S. Rugh @JakeRugh

This is truly remarkable.

Homicides year-to-date are DOWN -13% across 90 big cities, -12% for top 10 U.S. cities since last year.

And WAY DOWN by -23% in NYC, L.A., HOU, Philly.

As @Crimealytics shows, this could become the largest yearly drop in over a generation (since 1996)



https://twitter.com/JakeRugh/status/1665847301192003584


Jeff Asher @Crimealytics

New from me: Murder is down 12% in over 90 US cities with available data so far in '23. I wrote in @TheAtlantic
about how it could be indicative of one of the largest national drops in murder ever recorded happening this year & ideas on possible drivers.

https://twitter.com/Crimealytics/status/1665731264689602561

Read Here: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/us-murder-rate-decline-crime-statistics/674290/