Tag: democrats

McIver trial pushed back as judge mulls whether to toss charges

A federal judge has indefinitely delayed Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark)’s trial on assault charges, previously set to begin on Monday, while he mulls whether to toss the charges against her entirely.

District Judge Jamel Semper wrote in a brief order today that the November 10 trial is “adjourned without date pending resolution of the pretrial motions.”

McIver was charged with assault in May following a scuffle with federal immigration officers at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark. The first-term congresswoman pleaded not guilty to the charges, and filed a series of motions over the summer arguing both that the indictment runs afoul of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause protecting official legislative acts and that the attempt to prosecute her is politically motivated.

At an October 21 hearing, Semper heard oral arguments from McIver’s legal team and from the Department of Justice, which has asked Semper to dismiss McIver’s efforts to derail the indictment. Two and a half weeks later, Semper has yet to issue a ruling on the matter.

There has, however, been some activity on a different motion to force the Trump administration to take down “extrajudicial statements” that denigrate McIver. Semper said during oral arguments that the Department of Justice needed to “redouble their efforts” to take down offending social media posts and statements, and some have been removed in the weeks since then, but McIver’s attorneys wrote in a new letter today that other prejudicial posts still remain available.

Also still lacking a resolution is a separate court decision over whether to allow disputed acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, who has led the prosecution against McIver, to continue serving in her role; three judges on the Third Circuit Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in that case on October 20, but have yet to come to a decision.

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California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Is Killing Jobs

In 2023, California adopted a law that raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour. It also created a Fast Food Council with the power to further increase wages by dictate every year. Twenty bucks an hour is a nice, round number which is probably why state lawmakers picked it—though it’s not clear why they stopped there. After all, if you’re going to create prosperity by command, why not shoot for the moon and make all the Golden State’s fry cooks millionaires? But it’s just as well that they didn’t go further—that hike to $20 per hour is killing jobs as it is.

One Law Kills 18,000 Jobs

“On April 1, 2024, California raised its minimum wage from $16 to $20 per hour for fast-food workers employed at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide,” Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards, and Jonathan Meer write in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that was first addressed by Reason‘s Peter Suderman in the November print issue. “Our median estimate suggests that California lost about 18,000 jobs that could have been retained if AB 1228 had not been passed.”

The authors initially calculate that “employment in California’s fast-food sector declined by 2.7 percent between September 2023 and September 2024 relative to fast-food employment elsewhere in the United States.” But they make the point that, prior to the passage of A.B. 1228, the bill hiking the minimum wage, fast-food employment was rising faster in the state than elsewhere in the country. Allowing for that, and for changes in the overall labor market, they estimated the real decline in California’s fast-food employment at 3.6 percent to arrive at 18,000 lost jobs.

That’s a lot of missing opportunities for Californians to get a foothold in the work world, make money, and pay their bills. It also squares with other estimates of the attempt to legislate prosperity.

In September, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) drew on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data to estimate “15,988 fast food jobs lost since the law went into effect in April 2024.” The group added, “California’s fast food job loss rate (-3.3% of jobs lost) more than doubled the losses in fast food restaurants nationally (-1.6% of jobs lost) since September 2023.”

That EPI memo built on a November 2024 study that found “more than 4,400 California fast food jobs have been lost since January,” based on federal data. That study also found “10.1 percent menu price increases by April 2024 since the law’s passage in 2023.”

A February 2025 paper from the Berkeley Research Group (BRG) found the fast-food sector “lost 10,700 jobs (-1.9%) between June 2023 and June 2024.” The researchers added, “this decline sharply contrasts with the sector’s historically compounded annual growth rate of 2.5% and marks the only December year-over-year decline in fast food employment this century–excluding the Great Recession (2009) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020).” That report also found that “menu prices at California’s fast food restaurants increased by 14.5% between September 2023 (the month AB 1228 was signed into law) and October 2024, nearly double the national average (8.2%).”

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“Grift To Enrich Herself”: Ways And Means Committee Responds To Stacey Abrams Dissolving Shady Nonprofit

Radical leftist and twice-failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has officially shuttered her dark-money-funded nonprofit network, including the New Georgia Project and its affiliate, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, a pair of organizations used to drive voter registration and turnouts across the state.

Last week, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) released a statement that said the move to dissolve Stacey Abrams-founded New Georgia Project comes after the committee launched an investigation into whether the nonprofit illegally funneled millions into Abrams’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. Smith urged the IRS to revoke its tax-exempt status. 

Smith continued:

“The entire world watched Stacey Abrams turn her twice-failed gubernatorial campaign into a grift to enrich herself in the name of Democrat ‘Get Out the Vote’ and ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ efforts. The New Georgia Project’s decision to dissolve further confirms the Ways and Means Committee and Georgia State Ethics Commission’s findings that the organization broke the law when it failed to disclose more than $7 million in illegal contributions and expenditures designed to prop up Abrams’s failed 2018 campaign.

“This decision also raises further questions about whether Abrams or other organizations she is linked to have engaged in illegal activity. The Department of Justice should take a close look at every Abrams-linked nonprofit, especially given recent discoveries that Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency awarded $2 billion to a group with ties to Abrams.”

The rags-to-riches story of Abrams is fascinating. By 2023, amid the so-called climate crisis, Democrats used the Inflation Reduction Act, better known as the Green New Scam, to funnel billions in green subsidies into their dark web of nonprofits. Abrams, hired as senior counsel, helped secure nearly $2 billion in federal funding for Rewiring America.

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Pennsylvania Town Elects First Self-Described ‘Transgender’ Mayor in the State

The next mayor of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, will be a man claiming he is a woman.

Erica Deuso, a Democrat, is a self-proclaimed so-called transgender “female,” marking the first such individual elected to a mayoral position in Pennsylvania history.

“I approach my life as being a good neighbor,” he said in comments to WPVI-TV. “I want to be somebody who can be a role model as well. I may be the first, but I’m not going to be the last.”

Downingtown, which is west of Philadelphia, elected Deuso with a decisive 65 percent of the vote.

“It didn’t matter about my history or my identity. What matters is that I’m going to be that neighbor they can count on,” Deuso added.

“I’ve gotten more questions about our good neighbor Christmas parade than I have about my gender identity.”

Deuso nevertheless made his self-proclaimed status as a woman central to his victory.

“Tonight, the numbers are clear,” Deuso said in a statement, according to a report from WHYY.

“We won. Voters chose hope, decency, and a community where every neighbor matters. I am honored to be elected as Pennsylvania’s first openly transgender mayor,” he said.

“I carry that responsibility with care and with purpose.”

Deuso’s campaign account had produced some measure of controversy after he replied to a Department of Homeland Security post by saying “I forsee violent pushback from an armed citizenry in the future.”

“The 2nd Amendment folx were very clear that weapons are meant to oppose a tyrannical government,” he continued.

When contacted by The Christian Post about the comments, Deuso denied that he was making a threat.

“That post wasn’t a call for violence. I don’t support violence in any form,” Deuso told the outlet.

“Our government has too often ignored the rights of its own people, and history shows what happens when that disrespect goes too far; Boston Harbor once had tea floating in it for a reason,” he added.

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Forget Pelosi, Here’s Why You Should Fear Her Likely Successor

It was a good day this week when Nancy Pelosi announced her intention to retire at the end of this term. There has been speculation for years that she would retire soon, and it is finally happening. The problem? Her replacement may actually be much, much worse than her.

The man who has been looking to replace her in Congress in State Sen. Scott Weiner. His record is so radical that we’ve actually discussed him many times here at PJ Media. He checks all the boxes for the radical left: fanatically obsessed with climate change lawsuits, a champion for “trans refuge” policies that upend families and public safety, and always eager to line up with the most extreme social experiment the Sacramento swamp can devise.

Pelosi’s announcement that she won’t seek reelection has all but cleared the path for Wiener, whose campaign website is already up and running, and features a pride flag as part of his branding.

Earlier this year, Wiener authored legislation giving wildfire victims a blank check to sue oil companies for “climate change-related damages.” Instead of holding the real culprits accountable for California’s wildfire crisis — years of mismanagement, neglected forests, and feckless bureaucracy — Wiener wants to let trial lawyers loot Big Oil in the name of justice. The bill does a neat job of distracting from government failure, while inviting a legal circus that rewards people for blaming anyone but the inept officials actually responsible.

Wiener’s zeal for legislating the culture war is unmatched. In 2023, he pushed AB 957, rewriting California’s Family Code so that if a parent doesn’t “affirm” his or her child’s “gender identity,” a judge could deny the parent custody of their child during divorce proceedings.

This isn’t Wiener’s only foray into pushing the sexual boundaries that the left favors. He’s the architect of SB 145, dubbed the “pro-pedophile” bill, which essentially decriminalizes sex with certain minors under the guise of “equity” for the LGBTQ community.

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Woman Exposes Massive Medicaid Fraud Scheme in Democrat-Run Minnesota

Medicaid’s collapse into waste and fraud hit home for Erna Hammerschmidt, exposing how career politicians built a system they can no longer control.

After overcoming years of addiction and rebuilding her life, Erna discovered that her name had been used to bill the government for services she never received. 

A company she had never even met was charging taxpayers nearly $200 several times a week, claiming to have provided “mental health services.” 

It is one of countless examples of how America’s welfare bureaucracy—especially under Democrat-led states such as Minnesota—has turned into a money pipeline for fraudsters.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services has been under fire for years for failing to detect and stop widespread Medicaid and housing assistance scams. 

Under failing Governor Tim Walz, the department has wasted millions through weak oversight, political favoritism, and bloated contracts handed to “community care” groups that exist only on paper. 

These programs were meant to help people like Erna, not exploit them. 

But instead of accountability, taxpayers received excuses, “internal reviews,” and bureaucrats promising to “expand data analytics.” That means more consultants, more red tape, and no real results.

Donald Trump warned about this years ago. He is the only national leader with the courage to say what others were afraid to admit—the welfare bureaucracy in America is corrupt from top to bottom. 

It is not a matter of a few “bad actors”; rather, it is a system designed to enrich politically connected insiders. 

While Democrats in Minnesota pretend that fraud is a “racial issue,” as the owner of the company claimed, Trump’s message is clear: every dollar stolen from Medicaid is a dollar stolen from honest taxpayers and families who truly need help.

The Republican establishment deserves no credit either. 

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‘Devout Christian’ Dem caught following prostitutes, OnlyFans models on social media

He was reading from the book of lurk.

Texas Democrat James Talarico, a self-professed “devout Christian,” has been following prostitutes and porn stars on social media, even exchanging messages with some of the busty women, a new bombshell report revealed.

The four-term House rep. follows at least 10 accounts belonging to OnlyFans models, adult film actresses or escorts.

The Texas Dem, who represents the Lone Star State’s 50th district, is running to unseat Sen. John Cornyn next year, and is competing in his state’s primary against ex-Rep. Colin Allred

Talarico, who is also a seminary student, liked multiple photos posted by at least one of the sexpots and even exchanged private messages with another flesh peddler who describes herself as a “bit of a glamour-puss,” the outlet found. 

“Thank you, Alice!” Talarico, 36, wrote to OnlyFans model Alice Greczyn after she tagged him in a story, according to a screenshot released by his campaign.

“Thank YOU! Really appreciate your work. It heartens me to see there are politicians like you,” Greczyn responded.

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Biden’s Handler Caught on Hot Mic Treating Him Like a Toddler After Unhinged Speech

Joe Biden’s handler was caught on a hot mic treating him like a toddler after he delivered a speech to Nebraska Democrats on Friday evening.

Joe Biden delivered a speech at the Nebraska Democrat Party’s “Ben Nelson Gala” in Omaha on Friday evening.

At one point Joe Biden began attacking President Trump and said this week’s election results is sending a message to ‘Trump and his crowd.’

‘You work for us, Mr. President!” Biden shouted. “We don’t work for you! You work for us! Not just billionaires and millionaires!”

Joe Biden blamed President Trump during his unhinged speech.

“This is a democracy and the fact of the matter is there are no kings in democracies,” Biden said.

After attacking Trump, Biden tried to wander off stage but his handler stopped him.

A hot mic caught Biden’s handler talking to him like a toddler.

“You’re going to stay on stage,” Biden’s handler said as she grabbed him.

“I am? Oh,” Biden said.

“You’re going out by the side,” the handler said.

“Oh, alright,” Biden said.

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Trump Is Not To Blame For Democrats Electing Violent Extremists

While liberal America is justifiably triumphant about Tuesday night’s election results, a lot of professionals are quietly worried about extremism infecting the party. Certainly, electing a mayor of New York who’s an unfortunate hellbroth of communism, Islamism, and “defund the police,” is not someone you want defining your party nationally.

And then there’s the problem of Jay Jones, the Attorney General-elect of Virginia, who won handily despite being caught sending text messages wishing death on a Republican colleagues’ kids — and this wasn’t some flippant message. After he did this, he called up his colleague on the phone to further argue his point about needing to watch kids die in order to make political progress. He also appears to have deceived the state and faked community service hours as part of a punishment for being caught driving 116 mph.

Despite this, no notable national Democrat called for Jones to withdraw from the race. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger refused withdraw her endorsement of Jones, and Virginia Senator and former vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine also continued to support him.

Further, Northern Virginia, where the bulk of the state’s votes are, is comprised of the Washington, D.C. suburbs. It’s perhaps the most politically attuned area of the country, so it’s nearly impossible to make the case that voters were somehow unaware of Jones’ conduct. Jones was also running against a moderate incumbent Hispanic Republican whose tenure in office was scandal free, so voters really had no excuse to justify voting for Jones.

I live in Northern Virginia, and much to my own discomfort, there’s no way to get around the fact Jones owes his victory to a bunch of my liberal neighbors deciding in the middle of a government shutdown triggered by congressional Democrats that they’re fine with wishing death on children if it helps protect the cushy federal jobs and lucrative government contracts that make Northern Virginia one the wealthiest areas of the country.

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LAUGHABLE: Karine Jean-Pierre Suggests Media is Giving President Trump a Pass

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently appeared on the podcast of far left commentator Dean Obeidallah and claimed with a straight face that the media just isn’t being hard enough on President Trump.

She knows this isn’t true, she’s just a shameless liar.

It’s incredible to hear her say this after watching the way the media treated her with kid gloves for four years, and gave her boss Joe Biden a total pass, even participating in the cover-up of his diminished mental state.

Transcript via Mediaite:

DEAN OBEIDALLAH: When you, you know, you write about the media and you had a deal with the media and it’s always, you, there’s adversarial and there’s working with people.

But right now that you’re out, when you look at corporate media now, has it changed, especially over the last year under Trump? And is it less, is it harder to trust and be trustworthy of the corporate media right now?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I think you said it, corporate media, right? I mean, there’s a change in who owns the media, who gets to decide who speaks on behalf of these networks and what it looks like. I mean, it’s pretty scary. It really is.

Look, I’ve always said, and I want to be really clear about that, and it’s in the book, the freedom of the press is critical and it is an important thing…

…And when you take that away, and I’m talking about the current administration, when you take that way and you make it so that the people in the room only report what you want them to report and are not really holding you accountable, that becomes state TV. That becomes state TV.

So I wanna show that there is a respect that is owed and importance for our country, for our countries to survive, to have the freedom of the press.

And I do believe now, to your question about where we are with the media, I think there’s a Trump standard. You know, there’s Trump standard that– he’s just covered differently! And it is insane!

I mean, President Obama said it perfectly recently. He said, can you imagine if I did that? Can you imagine? And so there is a double-standard there.

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