This is what happens when United States senators try to speak on topics they know absolutely nothing about.
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland made an absolute fool of himself on X where he tweeted out his support for banning “high-ammo stocks”, whatever that is. Senator Cardin claims that we “owe it” to young people to strip them of their rights? Young people deserve senators that understand the Bill of Rights and at least make a basic attempt to understand the topics that they speak on. Instead we have Senator Ben Cardin.
It’s time to pass mandatory background checks, bans on assault weapons and high-ammo stocks.
We owe it to young people everywhere.
— Senator Ben Cardin (@SenatorCardin) May 12, 2024
Less than two weeks until its scheduled adjournment, state lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker appear to be at-odds in budget negotiations.
The Democratic governor is requesting legislative approval of a $52.7 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, accompanied with approximately $800 million in tax increases. Those increases, namely extending an expiring cap on losses that corporations can claim on taxes to gain $526 million and increasing the tax on sportsbooks’ revenues from 15% to 35% to collect another $200 million, are meeting resistance in Springfield.
Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at the Hoogland Center for the Fine Arts Thursday, May 2, 2024.
During a May 13 news conference, Pritzker said Democrats and Republicans — often clashing with the governor — were both raising concerns. Mathematically, however, he just needs Democratic backing since the party holds super-majorities in both the House and Senate.
The governor and Democrats have often been in lockstep throughout his first five years in office, yet tweaks to his budget proposals have occurred in prior budget negotiations. Pritzker said at an unrelated event in Chicago that he welcomes changes as long as they keep spending in-check.
“My one principle around this budget is its got to be balanced,” he said. “We’re not going to overspend, we’re not gonna start sweeping dollars from accounts that had been done before I became governor. And we’re not gonna go back to the old practices of, you know, making us a credit unworthy state.”
In preparation for legislative resistance, Deputy Gov. and former local state senator Andy Manar sent out a letter to department heads last week requesting their help in identifying $800 million in collective budget cuts. Their focus, he wrote, should be on items such as “grant programs and other discretionary spending that has increased in recent years.”
Others leading counter efforts to Pritzker’s spending plan include the Sports Betting Alliance, a nationwide advocacy group representing gaming interests such as DraftKings and FanDuel. The alliance claims the new rate will lead to an uptick in illegal offshore sports betting.
Last year, Illinois collected $150 million in tax revenues from sports wagering meaning the increased rate would bring in $350 million to the state’s coffers. Pritzker said the 35% is subject to the sportsbooks themselves and not on those placing bets, a point that he’s had to clarify with lawmakers.
Scheduled adjournment for the spring session is set for May 24, but lawmakers have built a contingent schedule tacking on a week in case negotiations are still ongoing. If negotiations are not wrapped up by the end of the month, a three-fifths vote in both chambers will be necessary. FY25 starts on July 1, 2024.
Jerry Nowicki of Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report.
Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.
JEFFERSON CITY — Democrats blocked business in the Missouri Senate overnight, preventing Republicans from sending voters a ballot question that, if approved, would limit future changes to the state constitution.
Republicans brought up the plan shortly before 2:40 p.m. on Monday. Democrats then began holding off action through a talking filibuster, which reached the 15-hour mark at about 5:40 a.m. Tuesday.
Stakes are high: legislators face a 6 p.m. Friday deadline to complete regular business for the year. With the potential ballot question pending before the Senate, the chamber cannot act on any unrelated bills.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded to a Sunday article in Daily Mail that detailed the large number of cops ditching California for the pastures of Texas, which might not be greener but are certainly more friendly to law enforcement. Morale is low among peace officers in the Golden State as soft-on-crime woke district attorneys like LA’s George Gascón and Alameda County’s Pamela Price, along with criminal-loving measures like Proposition 47, make them feel undermined and unwelcome.
Thousands of them are getting out of Dodge, the outlet reported:
…the Golden State is hemorrhaging thousands of police every year, with numbers down by more than 5,000 since 2019.
There are now fears that high-crime Californian cities are suffering a brain drain in law enforcement, leaving the public unprotected as criminals run riot.
Ray Bottenfield, a former Santa Monica College Police Captain who retired to Hewitt, Texas, admitted it had become increasingly difficult to retain or recruit officers due to the lack of support from the state.
A fresh poll from The New York Times brought more bad news for President Biden as he struggles to catch up to former President Trump in the key battleground states that will decide November’s election.
The poll found Trump leading in five out of six swing states, with Wisconsin the lone place where Biden is ahead. More concerning for Biden is that the poll found the president is losing support among young voters and Black and Hispanic voters, all of whom are critical to his coalition to win reelection.
While Republicans took a victory lap, Democrats cautioned it was one poll nearly six months out from Election Day. But Biden allies acknowledged the president has work to do if he is to win reelection in November.
“With the usual stipulations about polls six months out, Biden is behind,” said Jim Kessler, co-founder of the left-leaning think tank Third Way. “They need to be in a better place on the border, crime and inflation to win. They have a story to tell on each and further actions they can take, but they need to get cracking.”
Former President Donald Trump’s team blasted the Joe Biden campaign for releasing a Mother’s Day attack ad.
On Sunday, the Biden campaign released an ad attacking the former president by asking the American people to “do the moms in their lives a favor” and vote against Trump come November.
“Happy Mother’s Day. At the Biden campaign, we are asking Americans to do the moms in their lives a favor. Stop Trump,” said the press release.
“Families depend on moms – and moms deserve a President they can depend on to protect their rights, work to lower their costs, and fight for them. Donald Trump wasn’t and isn’t that President, but Joe Biden is,” it added.
BLINKEN: UKRAINE IN A TOUGH SPOT: After traveling covertly overnight by train from Poland, Secretary of State Antony Blinkenarrived in Kyiv this morning for meetings with Ukraine’s president and other senior officials to deliver a message of reassurance as Ukraine is facing serious challenges from an aggressive new Russian offensive that is threatening to overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses in the north.
“While in Ukraine, Secretary Blinken will meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments,” the State Department said in a statement announcing Blinken’s arrival. “He will emphasize America’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
In brief remarks before their first meeting, both Blinken and Zelensky admitted Ukraine is now in a tough spot, the result primarily of the six-month delay by the U.S. Congress in approving a $61 billion aid package, a delay that left Ukraine’s artillery and air defense systems greatly depleted.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has traveled to Ukraine to emphasize America’s “enduring support” for the embattled Eastern European nation that has been fighting a war against Russia for more than two years, according to a press statement from a State Department spokesperson.
“Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Ukraine today to meet with senior Ukrainian officials and highlight the United States’ enduring support for Ukraine. While in Ukraine, Secretary Blinken will meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to discuss battlefield updates, the impact of new U.S. security and economic assistance, long-term security and other commitments, and ongoing work to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery. He will emphasize America’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democracy in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” the statement notes.
On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) stated that while Israel can launch a major offensive in Rafah without new American weapons, whether Israel can “adequately deter all of the different entities who want to attack it, Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, various other militia groups without that support” is “a much tougher question.”
Smith said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu has put Israel, the U.S., and the entire Middle East in a very difficult place. We do not want to withdraw support from Israel, at least I don’t and the president doesn’t. We saw that when Iran attacked Israel a few weeks ago, if we are not able to help Israel defend itself, this war could spread as Iran and Hezbollah decide to jump into that void. But, at the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu is pursuing a strategy that is not in the best interests of Israel and not in the best interests of peace. He has no plan for a post-Hamas Gaza. So, the president has been trying every lever we have to change that. But we don’t really have the power to just force them to do something differently, and as I said, completely abandoning them comes with a high amount of risk for peace in the region as well. That’s what President Biden’s trying to navigate.”
I don’t know what to say other than don’t start wars that you can’t win. Of course, rational actors know this, but Hamas isn’t of that mindset. They’re a genocidal terrorist group that spent 17 years building underground tunnel networks to protect their members but intentionally neglected to build bomb shelters for its people in case hostilities broke out. With Hamas, war was their policy from the outset, aimed at destroying Israel.
There are reports that Gaza’s healthcare system could collapse within hours. It’s not surprising, given that Israel now controls most of the region in their months long military operation to destroy Hamas, which will be successful. These people have nowhere to go. The Left will blame Israel, but it’s Hamas’ fault. This entire war and all the suffering it has created is Hamas’ fault. The October 7 attacks were Hamas’ fault. Not agreeing to numerous ceasefire proposals submitted over the past months is Hamas’ fault. They reject peace with Jews. It’s explicitly clear to anyone paying attention. They’re the only party who could end this war right now but won’t. If you don’t want the health care system to collapse, there is one thing Hamas could do: surrender.
The US does not believe Israel can decisively triumph over Hamas in Gaza, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell has said. The comments come as fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Palestinian militant group entered its eighth month last week, with West Jerusalem refusing to walk away from its pledge to destroy Hamas.
“I think in some respects, we are struggling over what the theory of victory is. Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talked mostly about the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, a total victory,” Campbell said at the NATO Youth Summit in Miami, Florida on Monday. “I don’t think we believe that that is likely or possible,” he said.
He acknowledged the “undeniable tensions” between Washington and West Jerusalem over Israel’s ongoing assault on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza which is overcrowded with refugees who fled the northern part of the Palestinian enclave in accordance with the Israeli Army’s evacuation instructions.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw the trial against former President Donald Trump for civil fraud, is now himself under investigation, after receiving unsolicited advice from a well known New York real estate attorney, according to NBC New York.
The controversial left-wing judge found Trump, two of his sons, his business associates, and the Trump Organization guilty and fined the former president $454 million for falsely inflating his assets.
Real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey admitted to NBC last week that he gave unsolicited advice to Engoron, three weeks before he made his decision on the case, which is strictly forbidden by law.
“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey told reporters on February 16, the same day as Engoron’s final decision.
The principal of an elementary school in Ocala, Florida has been arrested after being caught on camera assaulting a student. Dontay Akeem Prophet, 33, was subsequently charged with aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment of a victim under the age of 13.
According to WCJB, the incident took place on Friday at Destiny Leadership Academy, a private school in the northern area of town. That day, Prophet allegedly locked a male student in a classroom before abusing him. Footage showed the principal allegedly take the boy to the ground before pinning him down as he thrashes about.
According to police, footage allegedly caught him “using a charging cable to strike the child, causing the child to fall and sustain injuries.”
“Additionally,” the force added, “Prophet twisted the child’s ankle, slapped the child in the face, and subjected him to further physical abuse.” It wasn’t until law enforcement caught up with Prophet on Saturday that he found out that there was a security camera in the room.
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has released a new book in which she claims that Joe Biden never looked at his watch during a ceremony for the return of the service members who were killed during his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a twist of nearly perfect irony, Psaki claims that in saying this, she was fighting misinformation.
Even some liberal news outlets are calling her out on this.
Psaki’s new book falsely recounts Biden’s watch check in troop ceremony
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki claims in her new book that President Biden never looked at his watch during the ceremony for soldiers killed during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 — contradicting news photos and firsthand accounts of Gold Star families.
Why it matters: In TV ads and social media posts, Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly have used images of Biden checking his watch during the ceremony to try to undermine the president’s brand as an empathetic leader.
In late February, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar sent a message to superiors shacked up in ritzy Qatari hotels, reminding them that “high civilian casualties [in Gaza] would add to the worldwide pressure on Israel to stop the war.”
Indeed, starting wars and then cowering behind civilians, churning out martyrs, lying about death tolls, and putting on low-budget Pallywood productions for credulous Western audiences is almost as old as Palestinian nationalism itself.
And for over seven months now, world leaders, American politicians, “experts,” and many establishment media figures have regurgitated the wholly unverified casualty numbers provided to them by a terror organization. It is a detestable abdication of duty that feeds the delusions of the far-left/Islamist alliance that’s infected college campuses, media organizations, and the U.S. government. Namely, it gives credibility to the “genocide” myth.
There are the usual offenders — United Nations, The Washington Post, The New York Times, MSNBC, and other organs of the left — but perhaps for the first time in history, the White House has also given these lies credence. In a Ramadan message to the Islamic world, Joe Biden repeated the fantastical claim that “[m]ore than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children” by Israelis. Samantha Power, now administrator of USAID, made the same claim during National Arab American Heritage Month.
German train workers are exposed to insults, harassment, violence, and even the threat of knife attacks from migrants on such a regular basis that it is making their jobs unbearable, warns a German trade union representing railway workers in the state of Thuringia.
German trains are becoming more and more dangerous due to mass immigration, and shocking headlines week after week, along with actual police statistics, confirm this trend. The union warns that young asylum seekers are the main perpetrators in the growing number of cases, and for the staff in Thuringia, train work is “sometimes life-threatening,” according to the trade union.
“I have an average of three employees sitting in my Erfurt office every week for legal advice. They were attacked, spat on, insulted, threatened or pushed,” said Steffi Recknagel, the head of the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) in Thuringia, during an interview with Focus Online.
EVANSTON, Ill. — One or more people attacked the Northwestern University College Republicans’ pro-Israel display after it was up for just five hours this weekend – but it will not change our support.
On Sunday, students representing the university’s College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom gathered on Deering Meadow, in front of Deering Library, to put up an Israel and American flag display in solidarity with Israel and Jewish students.
We decided to show our support of Israel directly in response to the pro-Palestinian encampment previously on the same lawn. Remnants of the encampment — including trash, tents, and other camping equipment — are still there.
In fact, the university had allowed the anti-Israel display to stay up for weeks now, only recently ordering the tents to be removed. This happened after numerous concessions to the activists, including full-ride scholarships to Palestinian students.
It’s a maddening New York Times article about the thousands whose lives were irreparably derailed by the COVID vaccine. To their credit, it’s a reasonably down-the-road article. Perhaps that’s because there are so many shortfalls regarding research on the vaccine’s side effects. There are high benchmarks for injury compensation, but there is no information on how to meet the standard. The medical community is not moving to address the innumerable side effects that have afflicted these Americans. No one seems to want to help them or even hear their concerns.
It’s an endless stream of issues, from unreliable databases to government disinterest. The establishment appears set in ignoring the pain and suffering these people have endured. The side effects include the usual rashes, but neurological disorders, specifically debilitating tinnitus, were mentioned numerous times in the piece, along with myocarditis, which wasn’t even first detected by our medical professionals—it was the Israelis. In all, 13,000 injury claims have been filed through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, and barely 20 percent have been reviewed.
Crews set off a chain of carefully placed explosives on Monday to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
The demolition aimed to free the Dali, a container ship that has been stranded in Baltimore harbor for 48 days.
The ship lost power and collided with one of the bridge’s support columns shortly after departing Baltimore on March 26, causing the bridge to collapse.
The accident tragically claimed the lives of six construction workers and halted most maritime traffic through the busy port.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge is a significant commuter route carrying the Baltimore Beltway I-695 over the Patapsco River at the southern end of the Baltimore Harbor, and it’s the state’s number one thoroughfare for hazardous materials, which are not allowed to go through the underwater roadway tunnels in Baltimore.
Border crisis charities are reportedly using large government grants for music therapy, people-plant interactions and high salaries for staff, according to a Monday report published by Free Press.
The NGOs running shelters in Texas, Arizona, and California, funded by the Unaccompanied Children Program, are accused of profiting from these contracts, Free Press reported. The combined revenue of the top three NGOs—Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc.—skyrocketed from $597 million in 2019 to $2 billion by 2022, based on federal disclosure documents.
The Free Press revealed that Endeavors has been reportedly using taxpayer funds for diverse therapeutic activities aimed at migrant children, including pet therapy, horticulture therapy, and music therapy. In 2021, the organization is said to have compensated music therapist Christy Merrell with $533,000. An internal presentation from Endeavors, which was made public by America First Legal, showed that from April 2021 to March 2023, there were 1,656 interactions involving plants and 287 pet therapy sessions.
New data revealing that barely any Ukrainian refugees are actually working in Germany has the left-liberal government struggling to explain the failure, despite promises from the government that this refugee group would help fill in for the country’s declining labor pool.
“More Ukrainian refugees should take up work in Germany,” said Olaf Scholz during a speech in Potsdam over the weekend. The German chancellor was reacting to data showing that fewer than two out of ten Ukrainian asylum seekers are working in the country.
This is a big problem for Germany considering it is the country that has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than any other EU nation, equaling about 1.3 million people, or about a third of all Ukrainian refugees. According to the Polish Economic Institute, which reviewed a number of countries in its study, only 18 percent of Ukrainians were working in Germany as of January 2024, amounting to one of the lowest rates in Europe. In turn, Poland, for example, has 65 percent of its Ukrainian refugee population in the workplace.
Joe Biden is throwing Israel under the bus to increase his chances of winning Michigan in the upcoming election. He’s now apparently ordered his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to assist in his stomp Israel campaign, with our top diplomat declaring that Israeli forces should “get out of Gaza” (via Fox News):
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday delivered one of the Biden administration’s strongest public rebukes of Israel, amid its war with Hamas in Gaza.
During a pair of TV interviews, Blinken said the United States wants Israeli forces to “get out of Gaza” amid what he described as “a horrible loss of life of innocent civilians.” He also said Israel’s tactics in the war have failed to neutralize Hamas and could create a power “vacuum” in the Palestinian territory.
On Thursday, three people were arrested in St. John’s after allegedly assaulting officers with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. One of the suspects was said to have used a block of cheese to carry out the attack.
According to the CBC, officers were called to a disturbance at an apartment building in the west end of the city around 1:30 pm. Upon arrival, they allegedly saw a woman assaulting another woman, and moved in to break things up. At that point, one of the women hit an officer in the face.
Later that afternoon, while members of the RNC were responding to a home invasion, an officer was assaulted by the alleged invader.
The third incident took place around 9 pm in the city centre. As Staff Sgt. Justin Soo explained, when officers showed up on scene, they “encountered a very irate male who then assaulted officers with a block of cheese.”
Jazz saxophone icon David Sanborn passed away today at 78 years old. The multiple Grammy-winning musician died from a long bout with prostate cancer.
Sanborn was diagnosed with polio at three years old and explained how the radio and music aided in his recovery.
Playing saxophone was an important part of his recovery, according to his official bio, and by the time he was a teenager he was playing alongside blues legends like Albert King and Little Milton. He released his debut solo album, Taking Off, in 1975, when he turned 30.
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Manhattan prosecutors turned Monday to star witness Michael Cohen to describe the crux of their alleged criminal evidence against former President Trump stemming from his bid for the White House in 2016.
Cohen’s account of doing Trump’s bidding to hide extramarital sex as Trump sought the presidency eventually angered the defendant. Trump exited the courtroom to say he chafed at being off the campaign trail and he read at length from articles written by legal allies. Trump also blasted the presiding justice after hours of listening, sometimes with his eyes closed, to his former “fixer” retell a story now internationally familiar.
The Hill: Angry Trump blasts Justice Juan Merchan following Cohen’s testimony.
Michael Cohen offered the strongest evidence to date linking former President Donald Trump to the charges he is facing in New York, serving as either a blessing or a curse to prosecutors, depending on whether the jury finds their troubled star witness credible.
Cohen, Trump’s former attorney, testified Monday during Trump’s trial that the former president knew every step of the way how Cohen was working to prevent porn star Stormy Daniels from going public right before the 2016 election with a claim that she had a sexual encounter with Trump.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Cohen had two phone calls with Trump right before Cohen went to the bank to use a shell company to wire Daniels’s attorney $130,000 as part of a settlement agreement.
“I wanted to ensure that, once again, he approved what I was doing because I require approval from him on all of this,” Cohen said of the two calls.
Michael Cohen testifies on the witness stand in Manhattan criminal court about the calculations that Alan Weisselberg made to determine how to pay back Cohen for the money he paid to Stormy Daniels, Monday, May 13, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Trump’s former lawyer described in court how the former president demands total sycophancy from his underlings.
Michael Cohen, former president Donald Trump’s former attorney, arrives at his home after leaving Manhattan Criminal Court on May 13, 2024, in New York City.
(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)
The third week of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan kicked off with the testimony of a familiar Trumpworld figure: former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen. Cohen’s turn on the stand has been hotly anticipated since the trial got underway last month, since he’s able to directly confirm key details in the prosecution’s case, chiefly concerning the logistics of the payoff to former porn star Stormy Daniels in order to suppress her story of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
