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☆ Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Makes His White House Run Official
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Trip Gabriel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

More than half a century after his father sought the White House to end a calamitous war in Vietnam and to salve the country’s racial strife, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a presidential campaign on Wednesday built on re-litigating Covid-19 shutdowns and shaking Americans’ faith in science. Mr. Kennedy, a California resident, traveled to Boston, once the citadel of his family’s power, to declare that he would challenge President Biden for the Democratic nomination in a long-shot bid for the White House. Appearing at the Park Plaza Hotel — a favorite fund-raising venue of his uncle Ted Kennedy’s — he sought to wrap himself in the Kennedy political luster at an event saturated, in words and images, with reminiscences of his father as well as another uncle, President John F. Kennedy. In a rambling speech lasting nearly two hours, Mr. Kennedy, 69, evoked his father’s 1968 campaign and death, and spoke at length about his career as an environmental lawyer. He also aimed criticisms at the pharmaceutical industry, big social media companies that he accused of censorship, Mr. Biden’s commitment to the war in Ukraine and former President Donald J. Trump’s “lockdown” of the country early in the pandemic.

New York CNN —YouTube on Friday said it would restore former President Donald Trump’s channel, more than two years after suspending it following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. YouTube initially suspended Trump’s channel after the Capitol riot, saying a video on the channel had violated its policy against inciting violence. YouTube had also disabled comments underneath videos on Trump’s channel, which appear to have been restored on Friday. As more platforms restore Trump’s account, some are also stressing he continues to face restrictions on what he can post, with the potential to be suspended again. YouTube said in its statement that Trump’s “channel will continue to be subject to our policies, just like any other channel on YouTube.” YouTube operates a strike policy under which users can receive escalating suspensions based on the number and severity of their violations.

☆ News outlets raced to publish Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward. Experts say the suit ‘has no legal merit whatsoever’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Trump this week filed a $50 million lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, alleging that when Woodward published audio of their interviews in his audiobook it breached his rights by constituting copyright violations. Most legal experts CNN contacted on Tuesday quickly dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward as meritless. But instead of major outlets pausing to gather this much-needed context after Trump filed his suit against Woodward, most newsrooms simply published stories echoing his complaint. Judge Donald Middlebrooks pointed to Trump’s “pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes” as he took note of several other failed lawsuits Trump has brought in recent years. It is also dismaying given the larger discussion among the press over the years about not succumbing hook, line, and sinker for Trump’s stunts.

President Joe Biden on Thursday is expected to criticize the fiscal proposals of House Republicans in his first major economic speech of the year, which he will deliver at a steamfitters union hall in Springfield, Virginia. Biden will talk about his goals of growing the U.S. economy with new factories and construction in communities across the country and creating well-paying jobs for the middle class that don’t require a four-year degree, a White House official said. Biden also is expected to announce a new “Invest in America” Cabinet comprised of the secretaries of commerce, labor, transportation, treasury, energy, and health and human services; the EPA administrator; and senior White House advisers, a White House official told NBC News. In his remarks, Biden will contend that the House GOP's economic agenda would pose a threat to the economy and the working class, the official said. Biden is expected to characterize the House GOP’s economic proposals as a “MAGA economic plan,” the White House official said — a reference to former President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” 2016 campaign slogan.

“Around the country, MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” Mr. Biden said, using Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan to describe the former president’s allies. While he had repeatedly and consistently said he intended to run, Mr. Biden stoked renewed speculation by delaying his kickoff for months. Mr. Biden tapped Julie Chávez Rodríguez, a senior White House adviser and granddaughter of the iconic labor leader Cesar Chávez, as his campaign manager. But the operation is expected to be overseen from the White House by top presidential aides. While polls show that most Democrats have favorable opinions about Mr. Biden, a majority of them would still rather he not run again.

Trump’s campaign didn’t threaten a lawsuit, as some sources close to Trump thought he would. Trump has slightly more than 4.8 million followers on the platform, compared to nearly 88 million on Twitter and 34 million on Facebook. But Facebook subsequently changed its rules — including a limitation on high-volume advertising — and Trump's campaign protested. Twitter was credited with abetting Trump’s political rise, but his freewheeling style came across as unhinged even to many Republicans who started to oppose his Twitter use. “Moreover, every day that President Trump’s political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process.”

Both would be setbacks for the Biden administration. In another immigration-related case, the court has yet to rule on the Biden administration’s attempt to implement its immigration enforcement priorities. For Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top advocate at the court, arguing before such a conservative court is a constant uphill battle. The government similarly failed to convince the conservative majority not to expand gun rights in another major ruling issued that month. The Biden administration can point to some hard-fought victories.

☆ Informant warned FBI weeks before Jan. 6 that the far-right saw Trump tweet as 'a call to arms'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Ryan J. Reilly | Ryan J. Reilly Is A Justice Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The email, which has not been previously reported, warned that the Trump tweet was “gaining hold” on social media. The confidential human source has provided information that the FBI has used in Jan. 6 cases before. The FBI confidential source said that they had “put together hundreds of pages of reports over the two weeks proceeding Jan. 6” for the bureau leading up to the attack. Months after the attack, FBI Director Chris Wray created the position of intelligence analyst in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, giving an intelligence analyst a leadership title typically reserved for FBI special agents. They said they were in regular communication with the bureau in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.

☆ Blinken vows US support for Israel despite unease over govt
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday the U.S. will not shrink from its unwavering support for Israel despite stark differences with Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu and concerns the Biden administration may have about potential members of his incoming right-wing government. Blinken said the Biden administration would engage with Netanyahu’s government based on its policies and not on personalities, including potential senior Cabinet ministers who have expressed vehement anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab views in the past. He said those would be detrimental to Israel’s long-term security or future as a Jewish democratic state. We will hold it to the mutual standards we have established in our relationship over the past seven decades,” Blinken said. He lauded the recent completion of a maritime border accord between Israel and Lebanon.

In the 13 races in six battleground states where an election denier was on the ballot for governor, secretary of state or attorney general, 12 lost, according to the latest NBC News projections. Arizona — along with Michigan and Alabama — was one of three states where election deniers advanced to be the GOP nominees for governor, secretary of state and attorney general. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Republican Doug Mastriano — who was one of the most high-profile election deniers — lost the race for governor to Democrat Josh Shapiro. “But voters sent a very clear message that Americans deeply care about democracy and don’t want extremists running our nation’s elections.”The defeats of election deniers spanned well beyond swing states. All 14 races where election deniers won were in states that voted to elect Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

But after his 19% margin win on Tuesday over Democrat Charlie Crist, DeSantis may in fact be the Republican Party’s savior. Somebody needs to deliver the GOP from Trump, and from that victory margin to his polling ahead of the former president, signs point to DeSantis as The One. The cheeky right-aligned New York Post on Wednesday ran a “DeFuture” cover of the DeSantis family (“Young GOP star DeSantis romps to victory in Florida”). Trump versus DeSantis is a fight between two men with messiah complexes who want us to believe each is the leader America needs. Could DeSantis win a national election?

“We cannot move on from the 2020 election,” he said at a debate in April during the GOP primary. Marchant has said he would not have certified the 2020 results in the state, which Biden won. Republican Tudor Dixon — who has said the 2020 election was stolen — is running for governor against Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer. Matthew DePerno, who is running for attorney general against Democratic incumbent Dana Nessel, has also repeatedly espoused debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election results in Michigan. DePerno has also argued that any Michigan resident should have the right to demand a vote audit of the state’s election results.

☆ Rhode Island’s Allan Fung Tries to Blaze Trail for GOP in Deep-Blue Northeast
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Natalie Andrews | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Republican Allan Fung gestured toward Democrat Seth Magaziner during a debate Tuesday between the two candidates vying for a House seat representing Rhode Island. CRANSTON, R.I.—Republicans’ efforts to expand their House map and win over voters in unfriendly Democratic territory hinge on candidates such as Allan Fung , who casts himself as a moderate in a Trump-dominated party. Mr. Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, south of Providence, criticizes President Biden and Democrats for their spending programs, saying they have fueled inflation, while accusing the party of not doing enough to fight rising costs. But unlike many Republicans, he opposes federal abortion restrictions and has shunned former President Donald Trump’s “America First” brand of conservatism, speaking instead of finding bipartisan solutions to voters’ problems.

☆ Republicans Target Deep-Blue New England in Midterms
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Natalie Andrews | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The already hostile Senate race in Ohio turned even nastier Monday as Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican J.D. At their final debate before the Nov. 8 election, tensions ran highest toward the end of their hour on stage, when one of the moderators asked the candidates about the "great replacement" theory. “This great replacement theory was the motivator for the shooting in Buffalo, where that shooter had all these great replacement theory writings that J.D. “Here’s exactly what happens when the media and people like Tim Ryan accuse me of engaging in great replacement theory,” Vance said. “J.D., you keep talking about Nancy Pelosi,” Ryan said.

Share this -Link copiedCommittee votes to subpoena Trump The committee voted on Thursday unanimously to subpoena Trump. Trump would not be the first president to be subpoenaed, nor would he be the first former president subpoenaed by Congress. "Even before the networks called the race for President Biden on Nov. 7th, his chances of pulling out a victory were virtually nonexistent, and President Trump knew it," Kinzinger said. “At times, President Trump acknowledged the reality of his loss. “What did President Trump know?

That's based on a Secret Service email from 9:09 a.m. "The head of the President’s Secret Service protective detail, Robert Engel, was specifically aware of the large crowds outside the magnetometers," Schiff said. A Secret Service report at 7:58 a.m. said, "Some members of the crowd are wearing ballistic helmets, body armor carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks." On Dec. 26, a Secret Service field office relayed a tip that had been received by the FBI, Schiff said. Trump would not be the first president to be subpoenaed, nor would he be the first former president subpoenaed by Congress.

☆ Biden administration wants psychological tests for parents of separated kids
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is asking that parents of children separated at the U.S.-Mexico border undergo another round of psychological evaluations to measure how traumatized they were by the Trump-era policy, court documents show. Government investigators have said children separated from their parents showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated. Biden administration officials have decried the Trump-era policies. The two sides had been negotiating a settlement, but then Biden said that families of separated children deserve some form of compensation. The Biden administration has formed a reunification task force that has reunited roughly 600 families.

A former Donald Trump supporter, who participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol and testified before the Jan. 6 Committee, was sentenced Thursday to 24 months probation and 100 hours of community service. Stephen Ayres of Ohio pleaded guilty to one count of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building in June. He said he lost his job and had to sell his house because of his participation in Jan. 6. But his thinking changed after Trump’s speech, which included disparaging comments about then-Vice President Mike Pence, Ayres testified. Ayres said he and other Trump supporters at the rally went to the Capitol because the president had told them to go there.

☆ Biden aides are quietly assembling a 2024 campaign as they await a final decision on his political future
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Carol-Lee-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Carol E. Lee | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +10 min

But, they said, if Republicans win one or both chambers, that would likely trigger a quicker pivot to a Biden re-election campaign. Relying on the party apparatus would allow the Biden campaign to forgo trying to build up its own separate campaign infrastructure in each state. But while a DNC-centric campaign might seem to be a natural fit for Biden, relying on the committee poses risks. “The Biden approach is the more traditional approach.”Far more than Obama, Biden is a creature of the Democratic Party. Biden aides say no final decisions on campaign staffing have been made, and they’re not expected to be until after the midterms.

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