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Thursday, February 29, 2024

Supreme Court To Hear Trump’s Immunity Case Relating to January 6

Los Angeles Times: The Supreme Court announced Wednesday it will hear arguments and issue a decision on whether former President Trump is immune from prosecution for the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. Even if the justices ultimately rule against Trump, their decision to intervene now will delay his trial for several months, casting doubt on whether the criminal case could go to a jury before the fall election campaign (Los Angeles Times). NBC: The order said the court would hear the case, which could take months to resolve, the week of April 22. That timeline allows for a ruling by the end of the court’s regular term in June, which is faster than is typical when the court hears arguments, but not as fast as prosecutors wanted it to be. The legal question the court will decide is “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office,” the order said (NBC).

Sen. Mitch McConnell Announces He Will Step Down as Minority Leader in November

CNBC: Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday that he will step down as Republican leader in the Senate in November. McConnell, 82, revealed his plans in an address to the Senate, where he currently serves as minority leader. McConnell, who is the longest-serving Senate caucus leader in history, plans to keep his seat in the chamber, which he took in 1985. His current term ends in January 2027 (CNBC). Axios: Under McConnell’s leadership, the Senate successfully confirmed three conservative Supreme Court justices and more than 200 lower-court judges, shifting the idealogical balance of the courts to the right. McConnell has long viewed transforming the federal judiciary by confirming young conservative judges as his legacy, as the courts carry significant weight in almost every area of policy (Axios).

Donald Trump Taken Off Illinois Ballot by Cook County Judge

Fox News: An Illinois judge announced late Wednesday that former President Trump has been removed from the state’s 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot, citing his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter barred Trump from the Illinois ballot one month after the anti-Trump challenge was dismissed by the Illinois State Board of Elections. Illinois goes to the polls March 19. Illinois is now the third state where Trump was booted from the ballot, after Colorado and Maine. But those decisions were paused pending the appeal of the Colorado case to the U.S. Supreme Court (Fox News).

Pro-Hamas, Pro-Palestinian Voters Use “Uncommitted” in Michigan to Pressure Biden to Ditch Israel

National Review: As of Wednesday morning, with nearly all of the vote reported, just over 13 percent of voters had cast their ballots for the “uncommitted” candidate option, while Biden secured 81 percent of the vote. The Arab-American progressive activists who organized the protest vote hailed the results as a success in their effort to warn the Biden administration that continued support for Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas would pose an electoral risk in the battleground state come November. At 100,000 “uncommitted” votes, the effort easily eclipsed the bar for success set by Listen to Michigan, the activist group that organized the campaign, which said that anything over 10,000 votes would represent a win. Despite the relative paltry vote share, anti-Israel progressives are touting the results as evidence of their electoral might and urging the Biden administration to change course on Israel (National Review).

ICE Arrests Four Chinese Illegal Immigrants for Operating Massive Marijuana Farm in Georgia

Fox News: Georgia law enforcement officials thought they were raiding an illegal food manufacturing plant before discovering $22.5 million in marijuana plants last week, authorities said Tuesday. Four Chinese citizens were arrested in connection with an illegal marijuana growing facility in Pierce County. The suspects, identified as Zhu Sheng Bing, Jinpeng Ma, Chenhui Shu and Wei Sheng Deng, were taken into custody. They each face a charge of felony possession of marijuana. Additional trafficking charges are expected, authorities said. They are all being held without bail (Fox News). Daily Wire: The bust comes as Chinese-backed illegal marijuana farms have been discovered in rural areas from Maine to Colorado to Tennessee. Earlier this year, top House Republicans asked for more information and updates on enforcement actions against illegal marijuana farms from the Department of Homeland Security and the Drug Enforcement Agency. At the same time as illegal farms proliferate across the United States, there has been a surge of Chinese nationals illegally crossing the border. Over 20,000 Chinese nationals have already been encountered at the border this fiscal year while only 450 were in 2021 (Daily Wire).

Fentanyl Is a Mass-Murdering Drug Peddled by Mexican Cartels

Free Press: Every week in America, about 22 kids die of a drug overdose. Eighty percent of those deaths are linked to fentanyl—a cheap synthetic opioid fifty times more potent than heroin. Even with illicit drug use among middle and high school students on the decline, fatal teen overdoses have never been higher. Fentanyl is so deadly it often kills kids experimenting with drugs for the first time. Between July 2019 and December 2021, according to the CDC, 86 percent of adolescents who died of a fentanyl overdose had never previously experienced a drug overdose. Fentanyl is made so sloppily by Mexican cartels that one part of a single pill can contain a high dose of the fatal drug, while the other carries no risk. In 2023, the DEA seized more than 77 million fentanyl pills, the most in a single year (Free Press).

Lara Logan Gives Senate Testimony on How Government Silences Journalists Who Do Not Comply

BizPac Review: Former “60 Minutes” journalist Lara Logan joined a “rogue” committee on Capitol Hill to discuss vaccines and the government’s role in covering up dangers. Logan joined a panel of experts on Monday led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to discuss the “COVID Cartel,” covering the COVID-19 vaccines, the history of covering up vaccine injuries, the corruption of medical research and federal health agencies as well as the role of the World Health Organization. The roundtable titled, “Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?” featured testimony from former government officials, and journalists as well as doctors and scientists. Johnson has repeatedly tried and failed to gain more information on the adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines but federal agencies have essentially given him the runaround (BizPac Review). Lara Logan: Watch Lara Logan’s segment just this morning in Washington, D.C., at Senator Ron Johnson’s roundtable discussion ‘Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding (X)?

Venezuela’s Homicide Rate Drops as Illegals Flood American Border

HotAir: The homicide rate in Venezuela has dropped like a rock. The numbers are shocking, actually, in how high they remain and how much they have fallen. More than a 25% drop in about a year, according to the Venezuela Violence Observatory. The explanation for this sudden drop in the murder rate doesn’t require a great deal of research. All you need to do is read the news and you will see story after story about Venezuelan illegal immigrants committing crimes in the United States (HotAir). End Wokeness: Venezuela has its lowest homicide rate in 22 years because their gangs are coming here. Read that again and let it sink in (X). Elon Musk: The ability to discard your identification documents (from any country), walk across the southern border and claim “asylum” has turned America into a refuge for the world’s worst criminals (X)! Last week, Venezuela halted flights from the United States deporting illegal immigrants.

Biden Looks to Spread Wokeness to the World

National Review: Exporting American ideals by promoting individual freedoms and fair treatment under the law has been part of U.S. foreign policy for decades. But no longer. The State Department is under the control of the Biden administration, which is less interested in freedom and fairness than in pushing its fanatical post-liberal progressive agenda. This month, the State Department released its 2023 Equity Plan. According to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “Inequity is a national security challenge with global consequences.” The plan proposes to advance “equity” — one of the administration’s beloved progressive buzzwords — for “members of marginalized groups.” It boasts about its intent to “embed equity in our foreign affairs work through diplomatic engagements, high-level dialogues, multilateral efforts, foreign assistance, public diplomacy programs and messaging, and procurement and contracts.” And, in typically zealous fashion, proposed rules will impose broadly defined “nondiscrimination requirements” for foreign assistance. These rules — which will apply to award recipients and contractors and their colleagues — forbid discrimination “on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, sex characteristics, pregnancy, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, indigeneity, marital status, parental status, political affiliation, or veteran’s status” (National Review). State Department: Each strategy is global and leverages the U.S. government’s diplomatic tradecraft, public diplomacy, foreign assistance, and consular affairs to advance national security goals, bearing in mind that engagements are tailored to the local context with direct leadership and support from U.S. missions. This approach includes actions to institutionalize equity strategies across the Department (State Department).

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Says New York City Is Anti-Business, City Should Be More Like Texas

Just the News: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said New York City should start implementing more business-friendly policies like Texas to attract investments. Dimon applauded Texas’ light regulations and the fact it does not have an income tax, which has encouraged companies to relocate or expand there. JPMorgan has more than 30,000 employees in Texas, while New York employees have declined from 35,000 to less than 29,000 in recent years. Dimon criticized New York City’s elected officials and said they were the reason why retail giant Amazon decided to not build a second headquarters in the city. “In New York City, the elected — not the mayor, not the governor, but a lot of the elected — they don’t want business,” he said. “They didn’t let Amazon come in and build a whole new thing there.” Texas was the most popular state to move to in 2023. Texas welcomed more than 470,000 new residents last year (Just the News). Bloomberg: In finance, the workforce has surged in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which during the pandemic surpassed Chicago and Los Angeles to become the No. 2 area for jobs in the industry. The Dallas area is home to more than 380,000 finance workers, trailing only New York (Bloomberg).