Tag: politics

AWOL Texas Democrats Unveil New Plan to Strongarm GOP Amid Redistricting Fight

AWOL Texas Democrats unveiled a new plan to strongarm Republicans amid a redistricting fight.

The Democrats fled to Illinois last week to block the Republicans from voting on a new congressional redistricting map.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened the derelict Democrats with arrest and removal from office if they didn’t return to the Capitol.

Texas Democrats will reportedly return to the Capitol for Governor Abbott’s 2nd special session to vote on the GOP’s redistricting effort, however, the timing is unclear because now they are making new demands.

According to the Associated Press, Texas Democrats won’t return home unless “Texas Republicans end a special session and California releases its own redrawn map proposal.”

The Associated Press reported:

Texas Democrats on Thursday moved closer to ending a nearly two-week walkout that has blocked the GOP’s redrawing of U.S. House maps before the 2026 election and put them under escalating threats by Republicans back home.

The Democrats announced they will return so long as Texas Republicans end a special session and California releases its own redrawn map proposal, both of which were expected to happen Friday.

Democrats did not say what day they might return.

On Wednesday, an Illinois judge denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to enforce arrest warrants against derelict state House Democrats.

Judge Scott Larson said Paxton failed to “present a legal basis for the court to obtain subject matter jurisdiction over this cause of action…”

Governor Abbott laughed at the Democrats as they made all kinds of demands for a second special session from Chicago.

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Dem House Leader Hakeem Jeffries Loses His Cool When Asked About the Socialist Policies of Zohran Mamdani 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on CNBC this week and things got a little uncomfortable when the host pressed him with questions about Zohran Mamdani, the communist that Democrats have nominated to run for mayor of New York City.

Jeffries repeatedly dodged and weaved when asked direct questions about Mamdani’s policies before finally erupting, asking why he was getting questions about someone who is not even mayor yet.

All of the hosts questions were perfectly valid, but Jeffries clearly didn’t want to discuss the issue.

The New York Post has details:

Hakeem Jeffries bristles when grilled about NYC socialist Zohran Mamdani: ‘Not even the mayor’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries bristled when pressed about Zohran Mamdani Thursday — snapping that he didn’t “understand” why he was being asked about the New York City Democratic nominee.

The New York Democrat, during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” had ripped President Trump as being anti-free market over his recent decision to replace the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a bad jobs report.

That prompted host Andrew Ross Sorkin to redirect the conversation to the Big Apple mayoral race, telling Jeffries he didn’t understand how the congressman could be both “an advocate for a free market,” and also possibly support Mamdani, a socialist, as mayor.

“I’m trying to understand why you would spend a significant amount of time asking me about the Democratic nominee who’s not even the mayor,” a visibly frustrated Jeffries shot back.

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Exposed: How Hillary Planned to Reward Schiff for Undermining Trump

The real scandal at the heart of the Russiagate saga is the intimate and troubling connection between Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton. This connection reveals how classified intelligence was weaponized to target Donald Trump. We’ve already talked about how recently declassified documents confirm the Trump-Russia collusion hoax was a deliberate political hit job, which Barack Obama approved in coordination with Clinton’s 2016 campaign. But things are so much worse.

As PJ Media previously reported, then-congressman Schiff was the architect behind the deliberate leaking of classified information aimed at smearing Trump and pushing a narrative against him designed to ensure his prosecution.

Back in 2017, a veteran career intelligence officer working for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee warned the FBI that Schiff had not only approved but actively orchestrated the leaking of sensitive classified intelligence. According to whistleblower testimony from 2023 interviews, Schiff convened a staff meeting where he explicitly declared that the group would leak damaging classified information about President Trump. His goal was to use this information to secure an indictment against Trump. 

The whistleblower, who was close to Schiff and other intelligence figures on both sides of the aisle, described these actions as “unethical,” “illegal,” and “treasonous.” 

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The “Libertarians” Who Say the Private Sector Is the Real Threat to Freedom

From its very beginnings in the seventeenth century, the classical liberals (also known as “libertarians,” or, historically, “liberals”) have been primarily focused on limiting the powers of the state. It has been state powers—not the powers of church or family or employer—that has been the great occupation of the classical liberals. After all, the movement was born in opposition to mercantilism and absolutism.

In the classical liberal view, it has always been state power that is fundamentally coercive and violent, and is the greatest threat to freedom and property rights. Moreover, because the state is monopolistic by nature, the state can exercise its powers untroubled by any legal opposition within the state’s territory. As such, the state is the organization that is positioned to most frequently and potently violate the property rights of its subjects with impunity. So, it is not surprising that historian Ralph Raico states that classical liberalism has been historically focused of preventing states from regulating the private sector, also known as “society.” In classical liberal thinking, Raico tells us, “the most desirable regime was one in which civil society—that is, the whole of the social order based on private property and voluntary exchange—by and large runs itself.”McMaken, Ryan

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Report: Texas Democrat Fugitives Concede, Will Return to Austin

The Texas House Democrats who abandoned their state in protest of the Republican-led redistricting effort will return home after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) took “emergency action” to begin removing the absent legislators as they refused to show up for work.

Multiple sources revealed the news to ABC13 on Tuesday, though the exact date the Democrats will return to the state capitol in Austin was not confirmed. 

The state House had only 95 members present for the second day in a row on Tuesday, with Speaker Dustin Burrows (R) predicting that the session will end and a new one will start assuming there is no quorum on Friday, the outlet noted.

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Conservative Moms Org Labeled ‘Hate Group’ in Police Training

A police training entity in Massachusetts asserted that Moms for Liberty, a nationwide conservative grassroots parental rights coalition, is a “hate group.”

The designation was made by the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee, an entity which trains over 20,000 officers across Massachusetts.

A Friday report from The Daily Wire, which first covered the story, said that Moms for Liberty was listed alongside other “Hate Groups.”

Some of those other groups included Antifa and various Neo-Nazis.

The slides claimed that Moms for Liberty is an “anti-government extremist” entity.

The training materials also said that Moms for Liberty opposes “books that reference race and gender identity.”

The group has indeed mobilized conservative parents nationwide to raise the alarm over heavily sexualized books, as well as those with leftist ideological themes.

The training accused Moms for Liberty of purportedly using “parents’ rights as a vehicle to attack public education and make schools less welcoming for minority and LGBTQ students.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Moms for Liberty an “anti-government extremist,” a reality likewise cited by the training materials.

“Moms for Liberty is here to show up at school board meetings, speak out against curriculum, failing schools, inappropriate books maybe in your public school library,” Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, reacted to the designation of her group.

“Antifa is burning down whole cities and parts of cities and rioting in the streets,” she said.

“These two are not equivalent.”

Moms for Liberty secured copies of the training documents through a freedom of information request of the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee.

“We have to ask what is going on here in Massachusetts with these trainings to police officers,” Descovich said.

“We are not conducting ourselves in a way that police ever need to be concerned about the way we act,” she continued.

“As a matter of fact, our chapter chair there in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, who is the one that brought all this to my attention, said she has local members of their police force come up to her all the time.”

“Please keep going. We can’t talk about it publicly, but I have kids. I appreciate you guys speaking out. So thank you for your courage and your bravery,” the officers reportedly say.

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Buying Our Democracy — Meet the Billionaire Leftists Behind the Lawfare Chaos

A central premise in Breaking the Law, my just-released exposé on the weaponization of the legal system against President Trump and his supporters, is that an objective of lawfare is to buy our democracy.

The funders of the lawfare superstructure are waging a political battle against MAGA and on behalf of the institutional left. The “law” itself is disregarded. It’s all about politics. And they have learned that with relatively small amounts of cash — methodically allocated — they can remake America in their preferred image.

That is to say, as a society of leftism and chaos as opposed to conservatism and law and order.

The lawfare-istas have learned that seats in local elections are often available to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, they fund lawsuits against high-profile conservatives (namely Donald Trump).

Thanks to shadowy “dark money” nonprofits, it is impossible to know exactly who is funding every element of the lawfare apparatus, but here are some details from my research.

REID HOFFMAN

The Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman bankrolled E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against President Trump. (I regard the case as farcical, as thoroughly documented in Breaking the Law.) Hoffman helped launch PayPal before cofounding LinkedIn in 2002 and is worth billions of dollars. He has also made big bucks from Facebook, Airbnb, and his venture capital firm, Greylock Partners.

He has funded a vast array of left-wing political activities ever since.

He hates Trump, saying he would “spend as much as I possibly can and it takes” to beat him — and he has, funding a vast array of left-wing political causes through shadowy “dark money” nonprofits.

Carroll, a columnist and comedy writer, was able to hire a crack legal team including Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund founder Roberta Kaplan. Kaplan was funded by a nonprofit primarily backed by Hoffman.

While the saga played out in one-sided NYC court rooms, Hoffman was making regular visits to Joe Biden’s White House.

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California Moves Forward With Special Redistricting Election To Counter Texas’s Plan

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Friday that the state will move forward with a ballot measure in November to redraw its congressional map in response to a Republican-backed redistricting plan in Texas.

Speaking alongside state Democratic leaders, Newsom said they would call for a special election in the first week of November to vote on redrawing the congressional map, a move that could potentially add five more U.S. House seats to the Democratic tally.

“We are talking about emergency measures to respond to what’s happening in Texas, and we will nullify what happens in Texas,” the Democratic governor told reporters.

“We will pick up five seats with the consent of the people, and that’s the difference between the approach we’re taking and the approach they’re taking. We’re doing it [on a] temporary basis,” he added.

Newsom also reaffirmed that the state will remain committed to its independent redistricting process. The Democrats said they expected to have a newly agreed-upon map, based on previous plans reviewed by the state’s independent redistricting commission, ready for public scrutiny next week, three months before it would go to voters.

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who attended the conference, backed Newsom’s decision and praised Texas Democratic lawmakers for their efforts to block the GOP’s redistricting plan.

“It’s not wrong in what we’re doing. This is self-defense for our democracy,” Pelosi said. “I thank again our Texans for their leadership, for their courage, and most of all, for their patriotism.”

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DOJ Launches Grand Jury Investigation into Letitia James’ Prosecution Of Trump

The Department of Justice has launched two new investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James and her office over her allegedly malicious targeting of political enemies.

The U.S. attorney in Albany, Daniel Hanlon, issued two subpoenas to James, the first one related to her office’s civil fraud case against President Trump, the New York Times reported.

The Justice Department reportedly believes her prosecution of Trump violated his Constitutional rights.

The second subpoena is related to her office’s long-running effort to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), according to the Times.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has signed off on the probes, and a there is a grand jury underway in New York’s state capital Albany, Fox News reported Friday.

“The DOJ Is going after James because she took then former president Donald Trump to court ‘simply because she didn’t like him and campaigned on getting him,’” Fox reported. The Justice Department reportedly believes James violated Trump’s First Amendment rights dealing with free speech.

James had accused Trump of inflating his net worth to get a good deal on loans and other financial benefits.

Trump-hating Judge Engoron ruled in her favor and ordered the Trump Organization to pay a $454 million bond, prompting George Washington University law Professor Jonathan Turley to call it “absurdly out of line with not just the purpose of the law but the facts of the case.”

A New York Appeals Court later reduced Trump’s bond to $175 million, which he paid on March 31, 2024.

Trump fumed against Engoron and James on Truth Social after he paid the bond.

“He is a whacked out nut job who just made up a number out of thin air, just like he did on the value of Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said.

“Businesses won’t enter New York because of this decision, and many are fleeing. Think of it – I had to pay an enormous sum for the right to Appeal the ridiculous decision of a CROOKED Judge and A.G. This is Election Interference, and it all comes directly from Joe Biden and the White House. An attack, along with ALL OF THE OTHERS, on his political opponent, ME!”

After the 2024 election, James refused to drop the case, reasoning that presidents are not protected by immunity in civil cases.

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The Verdict of History: How Political Calculations Betrayed Gaza

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released a comprehensive report on July 27 describing the Israeli war on Gaza as genocide. However, the delay in publishing such an indictment is troubling and adds to an existing problem of politically motivated decision-making processes that have, in their own right, prolonged the ongoing Israeli war crimes.

The report accused Israel of committing genocide, a conclusion reached after a detailed analysis of the military campaign’s intent, the systematic destruction of civilian life, and the government-engineered famine. This finding is significant because it adds to the massive body of legal and testimonial evidence affirming the Palestinian position that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide.

Moreover, the fact that B’Tselem is an Israeli organization is doubly important. It represents an insider’s indictment of the horrific massacres and the government-engineered famine in the Strip, directly challenging the baseless argument that accusing Israel of genocide is an act of antisemitism.

Western media were particularly interested in this report, despite the fact that numerous first-hand Palestinian reports and investigations are often ignored or downplayed. This double standard continues to feed into a chronic media problem in its perception of Palestine and Israel.

Claims by Palestinians of Israeli war crimes have historically been ignored by mainstream media or academia. Whether the Zionist militia’s massacre of Tantura in 1948, the actual number of Palestinians and Lebanese killed in the massacres of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in 1982, or the events resulting in the Jenin massacre in the West Bank in 2002, the media has frequently ignored the Palestinian account. It often gains a degree of validation only if it is backed by Israeli or Western voices.

The latest B’Tselem report is no exception. But another question must be asked: why did it take nearly two years for B’Tselem to reach such an obvious conclusion? Israeli rights groups, in particular, have far greater access to the conduct of the Israeli army, the statements of politicians, and Hebrew media coverage than any other entity. Such a conclusion, therefore, should have been reached in a matter of two months, not two years.

This kind of intentional delay has so far defined the position of many international institutions, organizations, and individuals whose moral authority would have helped Palestinians establish the facts of the genocide globally much earlier.

For example, despite the ICJ’s historic ruling on January 26, 2024, that determined that there are plausible grounds for South Africa’s accusation of Israel of committing genocide, the court is still unable, or unwilling, to produce a conclusive ruling. A definitive ruling would have been a significant pressure card on Israel to end its mass killing in Gaza. 

Instead, for now, the ICJ expects Israel to investigate itself, a most unrealistic expectation at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises his extremist ministers that Israel will encourage the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The same indictment of intentional and politicized delays can be attributed to the International Criminal Court. While it issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister on November 21, 2024, no concrete action has been taken. Instead, it is the Chief Prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, who finds himself attacked by the US government and media for having the courage to follow through on the investigation.

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