Charge Kristi Noem with animal cruelty for killing her puppy!

VIDEO OF THE DAY: Trump's attorneys make sudden motion for a mistrial
The MAGA cult leader's lawyers, deeply agitated by Stormy Daniels' detailed and damning testimony, tried to argue that her account was "unfairly prejudicial" and had "nothing to do with falsifying documents," so therefore a mistrial should be declared and Trump let off the hook. We aren't sure what *exactly* the judge said in his immediate denial, but we're pretty sure it was LOLOLOLOLOL NO WAY BOZO.

Take Action: Punish Trump for violating his gag order!

Trump judge indefinitely postpones his stolen classified documents trial
Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed the serially indicted fraudster's stolen documents trial in an appalling show of judicial interference in an unprecedented case of national importance. Cannon canceled the May trial date and conveniently did not set a new date, claiming there are just too many issues to deal with regarding classified information. Cannon noted in her Tuesday order that there are eight substantive pending motions she has yet to decide and she couldn't possibly decide them all before July, because the American justice system is apparently incapable of doing anything at more than a glacial pace.

Take Action: Reject Trump's national abortion ban!

Walmart and its corporate cronies caught pushing big lie about “shoplifting epidemic” to send more people to prison
Californians for Safety and Justice: Criminal justice reform programs like California’s Prop 47 have been hugely successful in reducing crime and helping communities heal WITHOUT sending people to prison — so of course big corporations like Walmart, Target, Macy’s, and Home Depot are pushing a massive recall effort on the factually incorrect belief that Prop 47 fuels retail theft. Watch this video from our partner Allie, share it far and wide, and make sure the public knows what’s REALLY going on!

US signals backing for "limited op" after IDF takes over Gazan side of Rafah crossing
The IDF has seized control of the critical Rafah crossing into Egypt, which prompted the UN to warn of a potential collapse of the flow of aid to Palestinians at a time when UN officials say northern Gaza is experiencing "full-blown famine." The Rafah crossing and previously closed Kerem Shalom crossing are critical entry points for food, medicine, and other supplies for Gaza’s 2.3 million people. While the Biden administration has said that an invasion of Rafah, where more than a million people have fled from the IDF's apocalyptically destructive advance through Gaza, is a "red line," the State Department was quick to assure Israel that the crossing seizure was acceptable; there has been little public condemnation of the Israeli bombardment of civilians in Rafah thus far. Last week the US did pause one shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel for fear it could be used in Rafah, reminding us all that there is leverage to be exercised here should the American government wish to do so. The Israeli war against Hamas has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, including more than 13,000 children, with the support of the United States government. Earlier this week Israel rejected a Qatari-Egyptian ceasefire proposal that would have paused fighting and reportedly secured the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

Take Action: Tell Congress to protect reproductive rights and repeal the Comstock Act!

Sen. Romney links TikTok ban to pro-Palestinian content
Leave it to a Republican to say the quiet part out loud. Contrary to all the hand-wringing over "national security concerns," Sen. Mitt Romney made it clear that one of the primary motivators for the TikTok ban was to stop young people from being "radicalized" by the constant stream of videos of dead children, child amputees, stacks of dead bodies, exhumed mass graves, and wailing families that have been dominating the social media network since the beginning of Israel's seven-month-long invasion of Gaza. "Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts," said Romney in a discussion on why Israel's public relations haven't been as effective as it normally is in whitewashing what was already an atrocious human rights record. This ill-considered remark makes a strong case for the TikTok ban to be struck down on First Amendment grounds, and ByteDance has filed a lawsuit against the US government to that effect.

Take Action: Tax the rich!

Valerie McCray wins Democratic primary in Indiana, will face Republican Jim Banks in fight for open Senate seat
Indianapolis psychologist Valerie McCray crushed former state Rep. Marc Carmichael and has a chance to win an invaluable Senate seat in a race against a Republican who is *not* an incumbent. GOP Rep. Jim Banks, who won his primary unopposed, has promoted Trump's Big Lie and has bizarrely gotten in trouble for sending letters to federal agencies pretending to be a member of the January 6th House select committee even though he was denied a seat because of his aforementioned conspiracy-peddling. The only polling we have shows Banks with a 10-point lead, but that was back in October with nearly 50% of voters undecided — plenty of time to hit the streets, knock those doors, and bring home a stronger Senate majority than before!

US report on Israel’s wartime conduct in Gaza delayed, aides say
The Biden administration’s report on whether Israel has violated international humanitarian law during the war in Gaza has been delayed and will no longer be released Wednesday as planned, three Senate aides and a House aide told POLITICO. The indefinite delay comes at a very convenient time as the US tries to get its longtime ally to agree to a badly needed and long-overdue ceasefire, for it is certain to have found that the IDF has committed countless violations of international humanitarian law and the most basic concepts of human morality in its relentless bombardment of Gaza. When asked why the report was delayed, the National Security Council deferred to State, and the State Department did not respond to a request for comment, which says all you need to know about what's really going on here. Should the United States government officially acknowledge that Israel violated international law, it would be expected to stop sending billions in military assistance.

Trump dealt surprise new consequence of his criminal trial
No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen: Wow.

National Labor Relations Board rules Apple violated the law in interrogations of workers
The extreme lengths that big corporations will go to in order to make sure their workers remain exploitable is truly reprehensible. The NLRB has discovered that Apple was illegally interrogating its staff at its World Trade Center store in New York City in 2022 in a witch-hunt for union sympathizers. The board affirmed the decision of administrative law Judge Lauren Esposito, who ruled last year that Apple illegally stopped workers from placing union flyers on a table in the break room of the World Trade Center store, confiscated the flyers, and interrogated staff over their "protected concerted activity." Unfortunately, the NLRB has less punitive power than most homeowner associations and cannot take any action more decisive than telling Apple that they've been very naughty and stop it right away, because every mechanism to discipline Corporate America™ has been gelded by conservatives over the past four decades.

Trump-appointed judges say they'll boycott Columbia grads over university’s handling of protests
Writer David Klion summed it up perfectly when he quipped, "I cannot think of a funnier way to punish the most left-wing Columbia grads for protesting Israel than by blacklisting their most right-wing classmates from the jobs they most want." Womp womp!

RFK Jr. says a worm ate part of his brain and then died inside his head
Yeah, that checks out.

US soldier detained in Russia after arrest during visit to mistress
One way to make sure your wife never finds out you're cheating on her is to find a mistress who lives in Russia...unless you happen to get arrested there for allegedly stealing something and your infidelity becomes headline news as part of a huge international incident endangering the already-tense diplomatic relations between two nuclear powers. That's exactly what happened to Staff Sergeant Gordon Black, a US Army soldier stationed in South Korea, who took a little hop over to Vladivostok to see his girlfriend without telling the US military. Oops! The Russian government emphasized that this is a civil case and not related to espionage or politics. One has to wonder whether Black is more afraid of the Russian interrogators he's about to face or the presumably very angry wife waiting for him back home.