Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday officially filed articles of impeachment against U. S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, days after the court’s presidential immunity ruling.
“The rampant corruption crisis at the Supreme Court has become a constitutional crisis that threatens American democracy as a whole,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.
“The constant refusal of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to refrain from participating in important judicial instances in which they have well-documented monetary and non-public ties is a serious risk to the rule of law, the integrity of our democracy and one of the clearest cases for which the charging tool was designed.
His articles of impeachment were co-sponsored by seven Democratic members of the House: Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Delia Ramirez, Maxwell Frost, Ilhan Omar, and Jamaal Bowman.
It also comes a day after Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden called on the Justice Department to criminally investigate Judge Thomas for possible moral and tax violations.
Articles of impeachment would have to be followed by the House by a majority vote. After a trial, the Senate is expected to convict by a two-thirds supermajority. Both probabilities are reduced given the cessation of the match in both chambers.
Since the creation of the Supreme Court, only one justice has been impeached: Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, who later acquitted him through the Senate. While there has never been good luck at the highest court, there is precedent for the removal of federal judges, which has happened 15 times in the country’s history.
So how would impeachment of a Supreme Court justice work?
As for the Constitution, Ocasio-Cortez could try to charge Thomas and Alito with “treason, bribery, or other serious crimes and misdemeanors,” or perhaps Article 3 of the Constitution, which requires federal judges to “perform their duties with intelligent behavior. “”. »
While this is almost impossible, there is also precedent for shaming a judge. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned under the risk of impeachment after a securities fraud money scandal ruined his career.
It’s time to check your voter registration, New York: According to Politico, the deep blue Big Apple is about to become a battleground state, as for Joe Biden it dissolves like the remnants of a bad dollar thrown into the Hudson.
According to Politico, Democratic elected officials, union leaders and political pundits are concerned that Biden’s team is ignoring New York and looking to it to push their crusade in the state. They are also deeply concerned about the presence of Democrats in six swing districts. which could determine whether the party will remain in the House in November.
A senior New York Democrat who spoke anonymously to Politico opined that Democratic politicians facing difficult races avoid partnering with Biden and instead focus on building their logo independently of him.
“Biden will hand out coattails, no matter what,” the Democrat said. “It only has anchors. “
According to two personal ballots reviewed through Politico, one conducted in September 2023 and the other in March 2024, Donald Trump leads Biden by one point in the swing districts of the New York House, targeting applicants from those six districts. Biden’s lead over Trump statewide has shrunk to just 8 issues, according to a Siena College vote conducted in June. In the run-up to the 2020 general election, Biden outperformed Trump on roughly 30 issues in New York, an unexpected drop. .
“We still act like we’re in a one-party state, as we have been for the last 20 or 25 years,” Democratic Manhattan Borough Chairman Mark Levine told Politico. “Honestly, we’re a battlefield state now. “
Meanwhile, Biden’s team expects him to win the state smoothly in November and has shown little interest in devoting resources to it. In the 2024 election, Biden largely traveled to the Empire State Building only for sumptuous closed-door fundraising events, which New Yorkers constantly protest and denounce Biden’s devastation of Gaza. He made a public appearance, at a rite of entry at the Stonewall Inn Visitor Centre in late June, but that, too, was overshadowed by the protests.
While Biden’s polls have sounded the alarm ahead of the 2024 general election, New York has been in regression for at least two years: In the 2022 midterms, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul controlled slightly to win a victory over the ultraconservatives. Lee, Holocaust denier Zeldin, whose crusade has largely focused on the crime-related alarmist crusade in New York. Four blue congressional seats turned red that year, adding up to the humiliating defeat of Democratic congressional crusade committee chairman Sean Patrick Maloney to Republican Assemblyman Mike Lawler. The elections in New York state also faced a strangely close competition. The midterm turnout in New York showed that the electorate across the state shifted to the right, falling in favor of Republicans, which strongly fueled concerns about crime.
Moderate Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, whose seat is up for grabs in New York’s 18th congressional district, north of New York City, and who narrowly won in 2022, called on Biden to resign on Wednesday. I would do a disservice if I said I was the most productive candidate to sit this fall. For the sake of our country, for my two young children, I call on Joe Biden to step down in the next election and fulfill his promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders,” he told the New York Times. “I hope, with all my heart, that he will listen to me. “
Still, many New York elected officials remain supportive of Biden, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both have expressed support for Biden as the Democratic nominee as he continues to face headwinds following his disastrous debate performance. “As I’ve said before, I’m with Joe,” Schumer said at his weekly news conference Tuesday.
“The case is closed,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Monday. “Joe Biden is our candidate. He will not abandon this career. He is in this race and I am in him. “
Democratic Party spokeswoman Jen Goodman hopefully dismissed considerations of New Yorkers’ longstanding hatred of Donald Trump, telling Politico, “At the end of the day, time and time again, New Yorkers have rejected Donald Trump.
“He is the most unpopular user in New York politics, and there is no doubt that the electorate will support President Biden in November,” Goodman added.
Donald Trump, a former U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, is issuing an ominous warning for a moment in the Trump administration.
“Trump will be back in January, I’ll be hot on his heels when he comes back, and I’ll lead the largest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Tom Homan said at a panel on immigration policy at the National Conference on Conservatism (NatCon 4). Monday afternoon. They haven’t noticed anything yet. Wait until 2025. “
Homan’s words are consistent with what Trump promises to do if elected in November, which is to recruit law enforcement officials into a major immigration crackdown and grant them immunity from prosecution and prosecution. The more he talks about it, the worse it gets. Trump has claimed that 20 million people will be deported and has consistently compared them to the character in the horror movie Hannibal Lecter.
Homan’s risk may also refer to the Project 2025 planning document, a 900-page manual written by Homan and other conservative ideologues with the collaboration of the right-wing Heritage Foundation. It explains how radical reform of the federal government could be carried out. , in line with Trump’s authoritarian aspirations, paving the way for excessive policies.
In recent days, Trump has tried to distance himself from the document, although many of its authors are former members of his presidential administration. Even some of his current collaborators have promoted him, including his press secretary for the crusade, Karoline Leavitt. Harris Crossade, along with other Democrats, pounced on the questionable document, attempting to link it to the former president and convicted felon.
But Trump’s denials are only credible, but they also alienate some of his right-wing supporters, including extremist Alex Jones and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. This segment of the Republican electorate is discouraged by the most excessive issues on the Trump Project 2025 agenda. but, in fact, he wishes for them to become a reality.
Oscar-winning actor George Clooney on Wednesday joined the chorus of voices calling for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
Since Biden’s disastrous appearance at the CNN presidential debate last month, many have suggested that he prove that his hesitation and functionality were not indicative of his intellectual acuity.
But in an op-ed for the New York Times, Clooney showed that things are just as bad as everyone feared.
“It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden that appeared 3 weeks ago at the fundraiser is not Joe Biden’s ‘big deal’ of 2010,” Clooney wrote, referring to a fundraiser he co-hosted. Biden last month, who raised $28 million for the presidential campaign, according to Variety. “He’s not even the Joe Biden of 2020. Es the same guy we all witnessed in the debate.
“Was he tired? Yes. A cold?But the leaders of our parties will have to avoid telling us that another 51 million people have not noticed what we have just noticed. We are all so terrified at the prospect of a Trump moment in term that we have chosen to forget all the signs of caution,” he wrote.
“We are not going to win in November with this president. The most sensible thing is that we’re not going to win the House and we’re going to lose the Senate,” Clooney said. “It’s not just my opinion; that is the opinion of each and every one of the senators, congressmen and governors with whom I have spoken in private. Everyone, no matter what they say publicly.
“We like to communicate how the Republican Party gave up all of its strength and all the characteristics that made it so wonderful with Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, to a user who seeks to retain the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam broke,” he wrote. We can bury our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can tell the truth. “
Clooney concluded that “Joe Biden is a hero; he preserved democracy in 2020. We want him to do it in 2024. “
Although he is a staunch supporter and Democratic donor, this is not the first time Clooney has hurt Biden. In May, the actor and director called a senior White House official to make explicit his opposition to Biden’s denunciation of the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against which he was opposing. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. An anonymous source told the Washington Post that Clooney hinted that ICC sanctions would penalize his wife, Amal Clooney, who worked on the case.
In the past, Biden has turned to famous spokesmen, such as Robert DeNiro, to help him define what’s at stake in his fight against Trump. If Clooney’s dissent prompts a wave of calls from high-profile public figures for him to resign, public opinion of the president could fall further.
A startling new investigation through The New York Times shows how Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago has become the lucrative “epicenter” of the MAGA movement, transforming from a nonpartisan venue for charity galas to a hub for the conspiratorial far right. Trump and sing songs in his honor for his son’s modest $600,000.
According to an investigation of the evidence of the New York fraud case opposed to the Trump Organization, Mar-a-Lago made a net profit of $22 million in 2022. Trump’s presidency, Mar-a-Lago, where Trump spends most of his time and where conservatives flock in hopes of catching a glimpse of their beloved leader, has seen his benefits more than double, according to a Times investigation.
According to the Times, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club has increased its registration fee from $100,000 in 2016 to $600,000 through 2022. With about 500 members, that equates to about $12 million paid to Trump’s club, which is cash directly into Trump’s pocket.
According to first-quarter 2024 crusade financial documents reviewed by The Times, applicants and political committees have spent more than $4. 7 million on Mar-a-Lago since Trump left the White House, with Trump’s crusade and super PAC accounting for about a quarter. . of this total.
Some of Trump’s grudges became known during his presidency: Mar-a-Lago raised a handsome sum from the federal government, charging more than $1. 4 million for rooms rented to Trump’s mandatory Secret Service entourage during his presidency and even charging the White House for alcohol. consumed by his collaborators.
Before Trump’s political career, the Times notes, Mar-a-Lago was largely a venue for glitzy charity galas and few political occasions. In the 2014-2015 season, the last before Trump announced his candidacy for president, the Times counted 52 fundraising activities. occasions at Mar-a-Lago, of which only one policy.
After his notable comment about “very smart people” about neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the fatal Unite the Right rally in 2017, many classic charity events brought Mar-a-Lago to a halt and moved to other locations, according to the Times. So far, six fundraisers have left the venue and have since been relocated to far-right events, such as an annual gala hosted by Turning Point USA, a conservative Christian nationalist organization to attack school campuses, which began taking positions at Mar-a-Lago in 2018.
The Times met 130 other people who have attended three or more times at Mar-a-Lago since Trump left office. Many are election deniers and Capitol rioters, and 44 are members of Congress, state officials or Republican election candidates. four of the hopefuls won Trump’s endorsement after making the pilgrimage and kissing the ring.
“We don’t do a lot of those things at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said in March 2022 at a fundraiser for Vernon Jones, a candidate for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. an absolutely political place,” Trump added.
Donald Trump’s donors are reportedly discussing the possibility that Sen. J. D. Vance will become Trump’s vice presidential nominee.
The Daily Beast reports that Republican donors are sharply divided over Vance, complaining about his lack of political and business experience. Some are also dissatisfied that one of Trump’s campaign managers, Susie Wiles, is playing the role of favorite with Vance.
“The user who’s had outside influence here is Susie Wiles,” one Republican strategist said, drawing on donor conversions, adding that “she definitely needs Vance. Vance is like your little pet.
Donors are more likely to turn to Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who have more experience and more secure foreign policy positions in Rubio’s case. On the other hand, “J. D. Vance is a guy who wrote a book and I contributed to a Netflix show,” the strategist said.
Vance also underperformed in his 2022 election victory in Ohio, trailing the state’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, by just about 10 points. The strategist said this shows that many Ohio Republicans don’t believe in Vance, which can translate to other swing states.
The article reveals that Vance has the backing of at least one major donor: Silicon Valley billionaire David Sacks, who is part of the notorious “PayPal mafia” that includes the likes of Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, among other tech moguls. Will those connections be enough to elevate Vance to the rank of Trump’s vice presidential candidate above Rubio and Burgum?Rubio is in favor of the status quo and hurts it with some MAGA figures, adding Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. It turns out that the resolution will depend on whether Trump needs a safe pick or an anti-status quo figure like him.
Donald Trump’s self-proclaimed “punishment secretary” is touting a far-fetched plan to arrest politicians, police officers, and journalists he deems disloyal to the former president, according to an in-depth new investigation via Raw Story.
Conservative political activist Ivan Raiklin claims to have compiled a “list of deep state targets” that includes senior Democrats and Republicans, U. S. Capitol Police officers, FBI and intelligence officials, witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trials, and New York Times reporters. York Times, CNN, The Washington Post and media outlets. His alleged crime? And Raiklin sees himself as justice incarnate.
During a podcast appearance earlier this year, Raiklin mentioned his nickname “Deep State Marauder, aka Mauler. “Raiklin’s plan for what to do with his list is rarely that horrific, but it’s still terrifying. He intends to use the right-wing sheriffs of his wing to carry out mass arrests, and in May declared plans to conduct “live-streamed crushing raids. “
Raiklin reportedly claimed that if he were to go public with all the alleged evidence he has collected about Trump’s enemies in the deep state, it would be a very likely explanation for why he would arrest senior officials and news hounds on his list.
These arrests are reportedly carried out through “constitutional sheriffs,” in particular a right-wing anti-government organization called the Association of Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers. Those sheriffs would then replace the 75,000 veterans who Raiklin said had been discharged from the military. for refusing to comply with Covid-19 vaccination mandates, forming a rebel army eager for revenge.
So far, gathering his troops has not been successful.
Raiklin tried to recruit some at the group’s conference in April, where he asked a panel if they would be “willing to go to the max to create consequences for those federal actors,” who he said had committed some kind of “seditious conspiracy. “”. »
Although sympathetic to Raiklin, officials warned that his plot was illegal and that prosecutors were unlikely to ever press charges.
Even Sheriff Dar Leaf, known among the far right for suggesting that the organization that tried to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was only seeking to arrest a citizen, felt Raiklin’s plan went too far.
“We’re not going to go through passing out and stopping,” Leaf said. “We have to present an indictment to a grand jury, just as the Constitution says. “
When asked via Raw Story about Raiklin’s plan, Leaf said that he did not know who Raiklin was and opposed political prosecution.
Former Sheriff Richard Mack, who heads the Constitutional Sheriffs Group, told Raw Story that he cut ties with Raiklin in early June and did not approve of his rhetoric. “Frankly, he’s talking about this list of 350 other people; I am sure They can resort to the facilities of a lawyer,” said Mack. “It reeks of judicial procedure and the procedure is not respected. “
Raiklin sent emails to sheriff’s offices across the country in hopes of rallying them to his cause. No one has signed, according to Raw Story.
Elon Musk is excited to raise right-wing discourse issues about allegations of voter fraud before November.
Inspired by Donald Trump’s e-book last week, Musk was late and launched alarmist tweets about the requirement for paper polls, in-person voting, and manual counting of polls.
This is a coincidence. The House will vote Wednesday on the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility Safeguard, or SAVE, sponsored by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. Ahead of the vote, the GOP is seeking to stir controversy over voter fraud.
The bill would require genuine identification or a U. S. passport to vote, instead of the popular driver’s license, in an effort to restrict voting to non-citizens. The bill also calls on states to remove noncitizens from their lists and even ask Homeland Security to deport anyone illegally registered.
In addition, this week, Republicans announced that they will include the citizenship test factor in their party’s platform at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week.
You wouldn’t know it from hearing Republicans speak, yet voting in federal elections is already a federal crime. In addition, the noncitizen vote is incredibly rare, accounting for only about 0. 0001% of the votes cast in the 2016 national election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Even the Cato Institute states that “non-citizens vote illegally in detectable numbers. “
However, Republicans and their allies rely on the conspiracy theory that Democrats are immigrants to borrow elections, conflating two of their favorite themes: voter fraud and the border. “Why are Democrats so adamantly opposed to only American citizens voting in our elections?President Mike Johnson wrote Monday on X (formerly Twitter): “They want to turn illegal aliens into voters. We want to pass the SAVE Act to prevent them from doing this.
Musk later reposted Johnson, writing, “Those who oppose this are traitors. All in capital letters: TRAIDORES. What is the punishment for traitors, again?
At 2 a. m. on Tuesday, Musk tweeted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who wrote, “There’s no way to hide it now. Biden and Democrats need illegal immigrants to vote in next November’s election. Our elections are NOT immune to major interference as long as states require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
As the owner of X, Elon not only promotes this rhetoric on his site, but also takes steps to get Trump and Republicans to end nonexistent voter fraud. Together with billionaire Nelson Peltz, Musk intends to provide Trump with a “data-driven election tracking system.
As Elon would say, this all sounds “extremely worrying”!
As Democrats continue to fight after the Biden debate last month, Trump spouted a dizzying array of nonsense on Tuesday and failed in his prepared remarks at a crossover rally at his golf course in Doral, Florida.
1. Trump claimed that Biden did not know what a synagogue was, a tangent foreign to his golf skills.
“Tonight, I will also officially challenge Crooked Joe to an 18-hole golf game right here at the Blue Monster in Doral,” Trump said, after challenging Biden to a debate “moderators, any restrictions. “
“I’m even going to give Joe Biden 10 secondary photos. And if he wins, I will donate a million dollars to the charity of his choice,” Trump continued before promptly signaling that Biden would not settle for the offer. Not because he’s hosting the NATO summit this week, but because he’s “just talking. “
Trump went on to claim that Biden “doesn’t know what a synagogue is” and claimed that Biden had undergone “three or four” facelifts. “Do you know why it took him so long to get into the race?Trump asked the crowd. ” The facelift didn’t work. “
2. Trump once praised Hannibal Lecter.
Trump devoted much of his speech to sowing concern for asylum seekers, comparing them to Hannibal Lecter. He then introduced a conspiracy for countries in South America, Asia, Africa, and “everyone else” to deliberately empty “their jails, prisons, and psychiatric facilities” in order to send “bloodthirsty terrorists, savage gang members, and child predators into the country. “The United States is after our people, it is after you, it is after everyone.
“Has anyone ever noticed The Silence of the Lambs?Have you ever heard of Hannibal Lecter?” Trump asked the crowd as he lashed out at asylum seekers. “He’s a lovely man. He’d love to invite you over for dinner. It will take you. He invited many other people over for dinner. “
Trump, aware of the implausible nature of this comparison, noted that the media “will say, ‘Oh, it’s terrible what Trump would say. ‘He rambles on about Hannibal Lecter. ” No, I’m not rambling,” he said in defense of his recurring non sequitur that compares asylum seekers to a fictional character eating other people. “We allow tens of thousands of people from insane asylums and psychiatric facilities to enter our country. . »
Trump’s claim appears to be rooted in a conspiracy theory that criminality has declined in Venezuela due to intentional efforts to send criminals to the United States. According to the available data, crime rates in Venezuela have gradually decreased over time due to the easing in the odds of crime. Because more and more people have been plunged into poverty and nothing valuable can be stolen from them.
3. Trump promised to “take our capital. “
Trump in Doral: “We will take over our country’s horribly run capital in Washington DC. . . immediately if you leave Florida – ‘oh, let’s pass by honey, let’s take a look at the Jefferson Memorial’. . . And that’s it, they’re going to shoot, attack, rape. We’re moving on to take our capital and. . . pic. twitter. com/NFnuQSMnoq.
Trump has declared that he will take over Washington, D. C. , so that it will no longer be “a nightmare of homicide and crime. ” He also claimed that other people were “shot, assaulted and raped” every time they visited the Jefferson. Memorial or Washington Monument.
Does Joe Biden have Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s authority to head the Democratic list in November?Pelosi says it’s up to him.
When Pelosi was asked Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, she ominously replied, “It’s up to the president whether he’s going to run or not.
“We inspire you all to make this decision, because time is running out,” Pelosi said. Host Jonathan Lemire then reminded her that Biden had said she would run and asked if she was looking for him to run.
“I need him for anything I need to do, and that’s just how it is, whatever it is, we get involved,” Pelosi responded.
Does Biden “count on your help to top the Democratic list?”Nancy Pelosi did not respond: “It’s up to the president if he’s going to run. We inspire you all to make this resolution because time is of the essence. “. (He repeated several times that he was running. ) pic. twitter. com/nyeZunyY30
Pelosi’s reaction can easily be interpreted as a non-reaction. Immediately after Biden’s disastrous debate two weeks ago, she also made no commitment. Last week, he called on Donald Trump and Biden to take an intellectual aptitude test.
Although she no longer heads the House Democratic caucus, Pelosi’s opinion still carries a lot of weight as a senior Democrat, and she is likely to be in a verbal exchange with other prominent members of the party. On Tuesday, House Democrats held a closed-door meeting. a personal assembly that supposedly left the party still divided over the long term of Biden’s candidacy. While Biden has tried to cast aside any concept of his replacement, reports show that many Democrats are concerned about his chances of being re-elected. If Biden doesn’t have the full of his party as November approaches, it doesn’t bode well.