Tuesday, June 18, 2024 BY CROOKED MEDIA

- Hannity, baselessly suggesting President Biden could show up high for next week’s debate with Trump.

The Biden Administration announced it will create a path toward permanent residency for approximately 500,000 undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens.

In order to qualify, applicants must have been in the U.S. for ten years and have been married as of yesterday, June 17. The executive action will also make the visa process easier for DACA recipients — the program that protects people who were brought into the U.S. illegally as children — to get work visas if they graduate from an accredited university and can work certain highly skilled jobs.

The immediate response to the move was predictably partisan. Democrats cheered, while Republicans warned it would lead to chaos. On his sad social media site, Trump called it “MASS AMNESTY” (all caps) and pledged to one day “SHUT DOWN THE BORDER” (again, all caps) and deport “Biden’s Illegal Criminals.” (mixed caps, maybe he got tired.)

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said the policy would create a “pull factor” and called the timing “an election year stunt.” In a statement, he wrote: “It's like a magnet, attracting people into the United States who know that if they wait long enough, President Biden will find some way to allow them to stay.”

Rep. Pramiya Jayapal (D-WA) dismissed Cornyn’s predictions. “That’s just ridiculous. This is requiring people to have been here for ten years,” she told What A Day from a car en route to today’s DACA anniversary celebrations at the White House. Jayapal has been previously critical of Biden’s border crackdown, but was overwhelmingly supportive of today’s announcement. “It affects a significant number of people and families,” she said. “I think it’s a huge piece of the fairness of the immigration system for those people who have been here for a long time and are married to U.S. citizens.”

Will this policy have a tangible impact? Or is it a lip-service effort to win back Latino voters, who have cooled on Biden — and Democrats in general — in recent months?

A little bit of both, according to Clarissa Martinez, Vice President of the Latino Vote Initiative at UnidosUS. She told What a Day that Biden’s policy is “significant” and will impact hundreds of thousands of families. However, she said the timing was not coincidental, and that most policy-making right now is aimed at impacting the election. Latino voters want “a fair, firm and free-of-cruelty approach to what’s happening at the border,” she said. And while they don’t support every element of the administration’s immigration policy, Martinez said they welcome the president using what power he has to help.

So… has Joe Biden earned the Latino vote? Martinez says: “Our polling shows both candidates have work to do.”

Mark your content calendars: Next Thursday, Crooked is bringing you another Group Thread! This time for the first Presidential Debate between freshly convicted Donald Trump and sitting President old ironsides Joe Biden. Join your favorite Crooked talent & staffers on the discord to chat with them & other members, upvote memes, and submit questions in the main chat. If that sounds like your thing, head to crooked.com/friends to learn more and sign up!

The Justice Department has launched a high-profile prosecution against the founders of a telehealth company for running what they call, essentially, a $100 million digital pill mill. The company allegedly prescribed 40 million pills, including Adderall and other stimulants, with “no legitimate medical purpose,” while advertising heavily on social media.

The move signals increased regulatory scrutiny over the field of telehealth, which exploded in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although telehealth has expanded access to medical care for millions of Americans, it’s not always an equivalent substitute for in-person doctor visits. In addition to over-prescribing stimulants, clinicians have flagged concerns over the rise of dial-a-doc clinics to procure weight loss injections, often with little oversight. Others worry that mental health services conducted online might not have the same impact, especially with screen-fatigued teens.

And while one-in-five medical abortions are now prescribed via telehealth, it’s not a solution for all women in all cases. The National Institutes of Health says, “the benefits of telemedicine in obstetrics are juxtaposed with the various downsides of lack of physical appointments and accessible technology.”

In a statement, the telehealth company told CBS News it “disagrees” with the charges and will do “everything in our power to ensure that tens of thousands of Americans that rely on us do not lose access to their mental health care.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized China for supporting Russia’s defense industrial base, saying Beijing "can't on the one hand say it wants better relations with Europe while at the same time funding the biggest security threat since the Cold War." U.S. foreign policy, of course, is never guilty of hypocrisy.

Trump failed, once again, to have his New York gag order lifted after an appeals court declined to take up his complaint. He’ll have to continue to refrain from making public comments, in all caps or otherwise, about people involved in the case.

A single Republican blocked Senate Democrats’ plans to pass a bill banning bump stocks. The GOP has backed banning gun stocks in the past. But as Senator Chris Murphy (D-NY) told What A Day yesterday, no one should be surprised if and when they fall back in line with the NRA.

A member of President Biden’s Secret Service detail was robbed at gunpoint in Los Angeles while returning from a work assignment. Rumor is, the perpetrator was Commander Biden taking his revenge.

Steve Bannon will have to serve his contempt-of-congress time in real prison — not a minimum security camp-fed — due to a separate open criminal case against him. Here at What A Day we believe in the abolition of the prison industrial complex, although that might leave the Trump cabinet homeless.

Sag Harbor, NY, police say Justin Timberlake ran his BMW through a stop sign and allegedly swerved into oncoming traffic early Tuesday morning. He was subsequently arrested and charged with Driving While Intoxicated – a crime almost as bad as his performance in The Social Network.

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Thailand appears set to become the first country in Southeast Asia to legalize gay marriage. Judy Garland’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota is trying to raise money to buy back her ruby slippers, which have resurfaced after being stolen from a local museum in 2005.

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