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Trump's expected appearance before a judge in Manhattan on Tuesday, as the Republican mounts a bid to regain the presidency, could further inflame divisions in the United States. The specific charges are not yet known, though CNN reported that Trump faced more than 30 counts related to business fraud. Daniels has said she was paid to keep silent about a sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006. Bragg said Congress does not have authority to interfere with a New York legal proceeding and accused the lawmakers of escalating political tensions. Bragg's office prosecuted Trump's business on tax-fraud charges last year, leading to a $1.61 million criminal penalty, but Trump himself was not charged.

☆ Manhattan DA office blasts House Republicans for collaborating with Trump's efforts to paint his indictment as 'politically motivated'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Manhattan district attorney's office blasted House Republicans in a letter dated Friday. Three committee chairmen have subpoenaed DA Bragg over the office's investigation into Trump. "What neither Mr. Trump nor Congress may do is interfere with the ordinary course of proceedings in New York State," the DA's general counsel, Leslie Dubeck, added. In the aftermath of the indictment, he rallied his congressional Republican allies, who had been trying to investigate the Manhattan district attorney's office, for support, according to CNN. Friday's letter says any interference in an ongoing criminal investigation would be "unprecedented and illegitimate," and jeopardize Trump's privacy rights.

Donald Trump has survived impeachments, investigations and congressional inquiries. Now, as criminal probes advance on several fronts, the former president is employing his familiar scattershot tactics to meet the start of a potentially more precarious legal chapter. Mr. Trump, who is mounting his third consecutive presidential campaign, could face an indictment as early as this week in the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into his role in paying hush money to a porn star. On Friday, Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran spent more than three hours before a federal grand jury in Washington in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

☆ Trump says there could be 'death & destruction' if he's indicted in New York
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Sonam Sheth | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Trump said that there's a "potential" for "death & destruction" if he's charged by NY prosecutors. for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?" Trump wrote on his Twitter-like website. Bragg, Trump wrote in the all-caps Truth Social post, "IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. Steel barricades also went up around Trump Tower this week amid his calls for protest, and law enforcement officials have taken steps to secure the downtown Manhattan courthouse where Trump would be arraigned if he's indicted.

☆ Notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Dan Berman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and says the probe by Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated. According to the lawsuit, the Trump Organization deceived lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of his properties using misleading appraisals. A federal judge ruled that Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray can be deposed for two hours each as part of the lawsuit. “What (Trump’s lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote. Woodward later released “The Trump Tapes,” an audiobook featuring eight hours of raw interviews with Trump interspersed with the author’s commentary.

☆ GOP lawmakers vilify ESG moves at BlackRock, Vanguard but take their money nonetheless
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

But Republicans have vilified BlackRock, Vanguard Group and State Street for leading the push on Wall Street to promote clean energy and what GOP lawmakers often title "left-wing social priorities." Still, many Republican lawmakers received money from the very firms their party is criticizing. It was the third election cycle in a row that both lawmakers took donations from the firm's PAC. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., received $10,000 from BlackRock and a combined $6,500 from Vanguard and State Street in the 2022 cycle. Huizenga's spokesman Brian Patrick said the donations won't affect the lawmaker's position on ESG issues.

☆ Kim Kardashian breaks down in tears over how hard co-parenting is with Ye
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Tracey Anne Duncan | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Kim Kardashian broke down in tears while discussing the difficulty of co-parenting with Ye during an interview with Angie Martinez, host of the “Angie Martinez IRL” podcast. “I’ll do anything to keep their life as normal as possible,” Kardashian told Martinez during the interview, which aired on Monday. So, in my home, my kids don’t know anything that goes on [in] the outside world,” Kardashian told Martinez. “I have the best memories and the greatest experience and that’s what I would want for them,” Kardashian told Martinez. My kids don’t know anything,” she told Martinez.

Jewish and anti-hate organizations are urging social media influencers and tech platforms to stop hosting interviews with Ye, the rapper and artist formerly known as Kanye West, as he’s continued to make antisemitic statements and criticize Jewish people in his recent public appearances. Ross, a popular Twitch streamer with 7 million followers, is Jewish and said that he was going to “stand up for the Jews” in the interview. On Dec. 5, political streamer Hasan Piker said in a Twitch stream that he may participate in the interview. Rez said that even if Ross planned to challenge Ye, she would be concerned that the interview would stoke antisemitic violence. Ross has been silent on the topic of the Ye interview since the call with Fuentes was published.

☆ New York State Wants to Conscript Me to Violate the Constitution
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Eugene Volokh | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

New York politicians are slapping a badge on my chest. A law going into effect Saturday requires social-media networks, including any site that allows comments, to publish a plan for responding to alleged hate speech by users. The law blog I run fits the bill, so the law will mandate that I post publicly my policy for responding to comments that “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group” based on “race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” It also requires that I give readers a way to complain about my blog’s content and obligates me to respond directly.

A gunman opened fire at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Saturday night, killing five people and injuring 19 others. The shooting at Club Q is a tragic yet predictable outcome of demonizing LGBTQ people and using children as political pawns. Run by Chaya Raichik, Libs of TikTok has targeted LGBTQ people, drag events and Pride celebrations across the country. In addition to Boebert and Libs of TikTok, political leaders like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Florida Gov. We deserve to go to gay bars and drag shows or walk down the street without being attacked or harassed, or killed.

☆ The notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Dan Berman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

CNN —All eyes are on former President Donald Trump, whose third White House bid has already become mired in controversy. The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were brought to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office. Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN. During the panel’s hearings this summer, fingers were pointed at GOP lawmakers and Trump allies who tried to help overturn the election and Trump White House officials who failed to stop the former president’s actions. Recently, DOJ moved to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin.

☆ Sure, Twitter and Facebook have deepened polarization — just not in the way you think
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

The conventional wisdom blames social media for the widening divide because the timing lines up. Maybe the problem isn't that social media has driven us all into like-minded bubbles. Maybe it's that social media has obliterated the bubbles we've all lived in for centuries. On top of that, Törnberg adds, there's the way people react to all the new ideas that social media exposes them to. And as one leading social media and polarization researcher told me, the model is not empirical, which makes it hard to test.

These rappers are part of a string of artists who have died by gun violence, with at least one rapper being fatally shot every year since 2018. But experts say the problem is much more complex than that. Elaine Richardson, a professor at Ohio State University who specializes in African American cultures, literacy and hip-hop, said it’s important to prioritize systemic issues when we discuss the killings of rappers. La Rock, who was part of the influential hip-hop group Boogie Down Productions, was fatally shot outside a Bronx apartment complex that summer. “There’s this prevailing notion that rap artists have the most dangerous job, but I don’t subscribe to that.”

☆ After declaring that he's 'not a terrorist' Trump uses North Carolina rally to vilify New York Attorney General Letitia James
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Taiyler Simone Mitchell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Former President Donald Trump bashed the NY AG who filed a suit against him and his family business. His remarks came at a Friday rally where he also lifted up his children, who were named in the suit. But Trump spent more time berating New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has filed a massive fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization. The attorney general is accusing him, his children, and the Trump Organization of years of financial fraud. At the rally, Trump defended his children who were named in the suit, apparently reading off a teleprompter: "Ivanka, Ivanka is a very good person.

☆ More than 1,600 books banned during 2021-22 school year, report finds
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Jo Yurcaba | Jo Yurcaba Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

More than 1,600 books were banned in over 5,000 schools during the last school year, with most of the bans targeting titles related to the LGBTQ community or race and racism, according to a new report. PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for free expression in literature, released a report Monday, the start of Banned Books Week, that shows the sweeping scope of efforts to ban certain books during the 2021-22 school year. Books were banned in 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students in 32 states, the report found. Friedman pointed to a case in Walton County, Florida, where a popular children’s book called “Everywhere Babies” landed on a banned books list last spring. The most frequently banned books were “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe, followed by “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson and “Out of Darkness” by Ashley Hope Pérez, the report found.

☆ The GOP's American psychosis didn't start with Trump. It won't end with him, either.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( David Corn | David Corn Is A Veteran Washington Journalist | Political Commentator. He Is The Washington Bureau Chief For Mother Jones Magazine | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +15 min

This piece has been adapted from "American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy,” by David Corn. Some reporters feared Goldwater supporters were about to storm the stage and physically attack the governor. The Republican Party — those then in control of it — thought otherwise. They were guided by what Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway once called “alternative facts.” For many of the Capitol Hill assailants, Trump and his paranoia had become a theology. Excerpted from "American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy."

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