SINCERETALK

As House Republicans struggle to provide evidence behind their efforts to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis over US immigration policy, even some GOP leaders are criticizing the right-wing leaders' efforts. Former US Representative Denver Riggleman (R-VA) on Wednesday shared his support via X/Twitter for Mayorkis' letter to the House Homeland Security Committee making the case for why he should be able to keep his job as secretary. In his letter, Mayorkis emphasized , "Undoubtedly, we have policy disagreements on the historically divisive issue of immigration. That has been the case between Administrations and Members o fCongress for much longer than the past 38 years since the last overhaul of our immigration system. I think it is unconscionable to separate children from their parents as a tool of deterrence. I believe that law enforcement at the border can be tough and humane. It is our responsibility to the American people to work...

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says only when Barack Obama became President did America “really” start to face racist “division,” that under the nation’s first Black president “everything became about race and gender, and that’s when “you just felt, people felt like they were being put in camps.” Haley, a former Trump UN Ambassador and former South Carolina governor, has insisted America is not a racist country and has yet to put to bed her initial refusal to say slavery was the cause of the Civil War. In an hour-long interview on “The Breakfast Club,” with hosts Charlamagne tha God and DJ Envy, Haley continued to weave a whitewashed web of America’s history. Charlamagne has questioned why more people don’t support Haley for President and said he will not be endorsing President Joe Biden, Politico has reported. “There will be a first female president,” Haley said when asked about Vice President Kamala Harris. “It’s either going to be Kamala Harris, or it’s going ...

The US Senate is close to a floor vote on a bipartisan, $78 billion package dubbed the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act that would provide numerous benefits to low-income Americans and families with children. However, Republicans are reportedly wary of doing anything that could help President Joe Biden win reelection in November. In an interview with Semafor reporter Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, openly weighed the potential political costs associated with passing legislation that would help American families under President Joe Biden's watch. "I think passing a tax bill that makes the president look good mailing out checks before the election, means he could be reelected and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts," Grassley said. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? Included in the bill's language is an expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) along w...

As former President Donald Trump faces several investigations and criminal prosecutions — amid his run for presidency — the MAGA hopeful and his lawyers argue that Trump maintain "presidential immunity." In a January 24 op-ed, The Daily Beast's Shan Wu wrote , "Let's make it simple: Presidents, police officers, and pedophile priests are not immune from criminal prosecution. No court has ever ruled that they are. Nor does the Constitution grant such immunity. Trump appears to think that the doctrine of qualified immunity — which is a form of immunity that protects government officials, including police, judges, legislators, and prosecutors, from being sued civilly in lawsuits over the performance of their duties — also protects these categories of officials from criminal prosecutions. But he's wrong." However, the former president plans put his immunity belief into action if elected in November, according to an exclusive Rolling Stone report. POLL: ...

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and one of her top prosecutors, Nathan Wade, will no longer have to testify in a hearing to answer questions about a potential inappropriate relationship. An attorney for Mike Roman — one of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Fulton County RICO case — previously accused Willis and Wade of carrying on a secret relationship, arguing that it constituted a conflict of interest. Reuters also reported that Wade paid for two non-work flights for he and Willis to both San Francisco and Aruba, after bank records emerged from the divorce proceedings. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Wade reached a "last minute settlement agreement" with his estranged wife, Joycelyn Mayfield Wade, which struck Wednesday's hearing from the calendar. And because the agreement will not be filed before the court, the terms may never become public. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? Even though Wade's...

This week, House Republicans have struggled to offer any substantial evidence behind their goal to impeach Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over US border policy, leading both GOP and Democratic lawmakers to cast doubt on the efforts. Speaking to former Republican National Committee chairman and MSNBC's The Weekend co-host Michael Steele Tuesday, MSNBC's Deadline: White House guest host Alicia Menendez emphasized, "There is no basis here for an impeachment. This is pure politics through and through." Steele replied, "This makes a show trial look like an embarrassment. That's just how poor they are in the substance. The poor approach to all of this, the fact that it is so heavily partisan and so political to the point that redundancy is not even a relief here. It's just bad all around. And the only thing here is the narrative of owning the libs — pushing something through that they can go back and say, 'Look what we...

Bafana Bafana stunned the No 1 ranked side in the continent, Morocco, to advance to the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations thanks to goals from Evidence Makgopa and Teboho Mokoena. from News24 news24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/X7cr0ed via sinceretalk

Republican lawmakers have recently "crossed a new threshold: by suggesting that it’s okay to disregard the Supreme Court," according to a Monday, January 29 analysis by Washington Post political reporter Aaron Blake . "The party that once prided itself as the law-and-order side has leaped headlong into highly speculative theories about the 'weaponization' of the justice system, spurred by former president Donald Trump , " Blake notes. The political reporter points to comments from two Republican lawmakers — US Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt — over the last week, in which they encouraged states to ignore court rulings that don't align with their political agendas. POLL : Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? "After the Supreme Court ruled last week that federal authorities can remove razor wire that Texas put on the U.S.-Mexico border," Blake reports, Roy wrote via X/Twitter, “ Texas should ignore i...

Former Judge J. Michael Luttig, a longtime conservative, filed a brief Monday backing the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling to disqualify ex-President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause, CNN reports. Per the report , "Luttig has long been one of the most high-profile conservatives to argue that Trump engaged in an insurrection following his loss in 2020 and that he should as a result be barred from holding office." In opposition to the MAGA hopeful's "argument that the 14th Amendment’s 'insurrectionist ban' can only be enforced by Congress after a candidate is elected," Luttig — and other legal experts calling for Trump's disqualification, argue "enforcement of the provision is instead within the purview of courts." POLL : Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? According to CNN, Luttig's brief emphasized that Trump's argument "would deprive voters of the ability ...

A Donald Trump attorney Monday "in an indignant court filing" alleged former Judge Barbara S. Jones' recent report on the Trump Organization is "an absolute lie, a cheap attempt to justify her government-mandated job, and a last-minute ploy to bolster the New York Attorney General’s bank fraud case" against the MAGA hopeful, according to The Daily Beast. Per the report, "In the run-up to the AG’s trial against the Trumps for lying about real estate values, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron ordered that a court monitor watch over the sprawling family company to ensure it doesn’t shift or hide assets ahead of a potentially huge judgment that could cripple the business empire. Since then, Jones has issued nearly half a dozen reports indicating that, for the most part, all is well." Trump family lawyer Clifford S. Robert also took aim at the more than $2 million the family has paid Jones in the filing, writing, "The monitor has thus...

Durban businessman Martin Stander is convinced his vehicle was used as an Uber while it was in the possession of Aryans ParkandSmile, a park-and-fly long-term parking service. from News24 news24/topstories/rss https://ift.tt/ehZuHmB via sinceretalk

The families of two men who survived a mob justice attack that left five people dead have described the harrowing moments the attackers came inside their homes, demanding that they hand over their sons. from News24 news24/topstories/rss https://ift.tt/BpGfmSt via sinceretalk

The tender was to improve security around the ports, after the July 2021 unrest that claimed lives and left property wrecked. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/MR9dLNc via sinceretalk

US Senate negotiators have reached a framework on a border security bill that will be unveiled as soon as next week, with a vote before the election likely despite former President Donald Trump's efforts to delay it. According to CNN , Sens. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) have agreed on a border package aimed at curbing the flow of migrants at the Southern border. The framework stipulates that the Department of Homeland Security would be granted emergency powers to shut down the border outside of all legal points of entry if there are more than 5,000 encounters at the border in one week. Special considerations would still be in place for migrants who can prove that they're fleeing torture or persecution in their home countries. In addition to the strict measures at the border, the bill would also drastically shorten the period of time in which asylum cases can be considered from 10 years to just six months. And even ...

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — who was the personal attorney of former President Donald Trump until 2021 — recently hinted that a lawsuit against his former client may be forthcoming. In a filing submitted Friday to a New York bankruptcy court, Giuliani listed his assets, which total roughly $10.6 million , according to Talking Points Memo. Giuliani's most valuable possessions include a Manhattan condominium, a single-family home in Palm Beach, Florida, a 1980 Mercedes Benz, multiple checking accounts and retirement accounts, three New York Yankees World Series championship rings and dozens of designer watches. Revealingly, on page six of the filing — which asks the filer to include any potential windfalls from legal proceedings — Giuliani included a "possible claim for unpaid legal fees against Donald J. Trump," with an assigned value of "undetermined." He also hinted at suing President Joe Biden for defamation. POLL: Should Trump be allowed ...

Just a month after he left his position, Don Hanlon — who was once chief of staff to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) — has officially filed his paperwork to run against his former boss in the 2024 Republican primary. The Hill campaign reporter Caroline Vakil quote-tweeted a post from an account that automatically alerts followers of new entrants into congressional races, noting that Hanlon's candidacy was now "official." Hanlon was one of three former Mace staffers who all resigned or were fired in December in a sudden mass exodus from the congresswoman's DC office, citing a " toxic work environment. " Hanlon even took the office popcorn machine with him when he left, according to the Washington Examiner. In addition to Hanlon, deputy chief of staff Richard Chalkey resigned. Randal Meyer, who was Mace's legislative director, resigned at the end of 2023. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? The staffers' accusations of a toxi...

As a US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit panel considers former President Donald Trump's argument that he should be immune from prosecution, MSNBC legal blog writer Jordan Rubin lays out a few possible reasons for the delay on a ruling in a Thursday, January 25 op-ed. Rubin notes one of the reasons for the hold up could be that "the judges know that this opinion needs to be airtight. Whatever they decide will inevitably be appealed, which would mean not only their colleagues on the full D.C. Circuit — in what’s known as en banc review — but also potentially Supreme Court justices reviewing their work." Second, he writes, it's possible "that even if all three judges on the panel conclude that Trump isn’t immune, they might have different rationales and may think that certain issues deserve more analysis than others," adding that "It’s possible that after a judge initially indicated they wanted to take a separate view, the panel is taking time to ...

During the latest episode of MSNBC's The ReidOut, Georgetown law professor and legal analyst Paul Butler broke down what exactly led to former Donald Trump administration official Peter Navarro's four-month prison sentence Thursday. "Navarro was convicted in September on two counts for refusing to testify and to provide documents to the [House Jan. 6] committee. He wouldn't speak to the committee but he had no problem appearing on television," Reid noted. "He's a Trump guy, after all. When he joined Ari Melber on this very network to describe his plans to challenge the 2020 election results." The MSNBC host then played a clip of the video, in which Navarro said, "The remedy was for Vice President Pence as the quarterback in the Green Bay Sweep to remand those votes back to the six battleground states." POLL : Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? Melber asked, "Do you realize you're describing a coup?" "N...

US District Judge Royce Lamberth — whom conservative icon Ronald Reagan appointed to the federal bench in 1987 — gave an ominous warning Thursday about the threat historical revisionism surrounding the January 6 insurrection poses to democracy. According to NBC News , Judge Lamberth read from a prepared statement during a resentencing hearing for a January 6 defendant that he was "shocked" by comments made by some elected officials (whom he did not name) that dismissed or downplayed the violent siege of the US Capitol in 2021. He further elaborated that those "preposterous" comments about the Capitol riot "could presage further danger to our country." "The Court is accustomed to defendants who refuse to accept that they did anything wrong. But in my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream," Lambert said. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office...

Donald Trump won the first-in-the-nation presidential primary last night in New Hampshire, a little over a week after winning the Iowa caucuses. He has bested his nearest rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. The path to securing the Republican Party’s nomination for a third straight time is now standing clear before him. You’d think he would be happy. He’s not. “Trump furious as he fails to knock out Haley before South Carolina.” That’s a Reuters headline this morning . “Trump, 77, was full of fury after Haley, 52, vowed in a Tuesday night speech to fight on, just two days after the other leading Republican contender, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, ended his campaign. ‘Who the hell was the imposter who went up on the stage before, and like, claimed a victory?’ Trump asked a crowd of supporters in New Hampshire, adding, ‘I don't get too angry. I get even.’” Why so angry? Trump may be winning, but he’s hardly dominating. He’s hardly invincible. His victory, in the end, is hardl...

As the end of veteran journalist E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial against Donald Trump nears its end, Daily Beast politics investigative reporter Jose Pagliery raised the question , just how much money would it take for the ex-president to stop defaming the longtime advice columnist? Pagliery notes during Trump's other civil trial — the now $370 million New York fraud case against him — "$15,000 in court fines proved insufficient to stop Trump from insulting the state judge’s law clerk. Only the ominous threat of throwing him in jail seemed to work." This bears the important question of whether there is an amount of money that would prevent Trump from "continuing to insult the journalist who accused him of rape," the Beast reporter emphasizes. POLL : Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? He submits that "the next few weeks could mark a turning point. New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur F. Engoron is about to issue a judgment that, i...

Eric Trump broadcast a barrage of fabrications and falsehoods about America, Democrats, and President Joe Biden, while promoting blatant propaganda supporting his father, Donald Trump, as voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots in the New Hampshire presidential primary. “You know there’s an all out war on family in this country,” Eric Trump declared while speaking to Newsmax. “There’s an all out war on God and religious freedom in this country. There’s certainly an all out war on freedom of speech and [the] First Amendment, you know, in this nation you guys have seen that, you’ve covered it probably every single day for the last three years.” “People are sick and tired of nonsense,” Trump continued, offering up no examples to support his claims. “People want our economy back. They want low gas prices again, they don’t want World War Three to break out all over the world. They want to be able to, you know, worship God and speak freely and not be censored and not be d...

The House Republican majority now has to fill one more open seat in the 2024 election after yet another House Republican's resignation. According to a statement posted to X/Twitter by Axios congressional reporter Andrew Soldender, Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota) will not run for another term in the House of Representatives, opting instead to run for the state's open gubernatorial seat following the news of Gov. Doug Burgum's decision to not run for another term. In the statement, Armstrong also appeared to lob a subtle shot at other members of the House Republican Caucus. While not naming any members of even mentioning Republicans, Armstrong distanced himself from members who seek "political gain" from not solving problems. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? "[T]he solutions to our biggest problems are not going to come from Washington. North Dakotans will always do better when we are in charge of our own destiny," Armstron...

Several Republican US senators are reluctant to give in to the idea that former President Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee, according to a Monday Politico repor t. Referring to the lawmakers as "still-on-the-fence Republicans," Politico's Burgess Everett reports although Nikki Haley "has no official Senate endorsements," and "Trump has 27," the former South Carolina governor still has secured a fanbase within the Senate. Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) both voiced their hopes that Haley stays in the race past the Tuesday, January 22 primary in New Hampshire. POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again? "Obviously it’s going to depend on what the margin is tomorrow ... I hope she does very well," Collins said, while Ernst emphasized, "She’s great … and I’m really proud of her. I think it’s good to have that discussion and highlight the different candidates. So, I’d love to see her stay in." Reg...

For the past year, analysts have speculated that the reason Donald Trump is trying to put off is that if he is back in office, he can shut down the trials against him. One legal analyst doesn't think that's the whole story. Speaking to MSNBC's Michael Steele on Monday, Andrew Weissmann, former senior prosecutor to Robert Mueller, said he thinks Trump is actually scared of the trial itself. "I think one of the reasons that Donald Trump is so desperately trying to put all of these trials off is because you cannot be sure that two-thirds is so solid," Weissmann said, citing the 66 percent of Republicans who support him on the 2020 election . "Right now, Donald Trump doesn't want to have his day in court, doesn't want to have to deal with facts in court ." Instead, Trump has been spinning his own story and attacking the judges and lawyers in court. This is a lot easier than facing a courtroom, which has procedures and rules. "He wants to ...

American Amara Majeed was accused of terrorism by the Sri Lankan police in 2019. Robert Williams was arrested outside his house in Detroit and detained in jail for 18 hours for allegedly stealing watches in 2020. Randal Reid spent six days in jail in 2022 for supposedly using stolen credit cards in a state he’d never even visited. In all three cases, the authorities had the wrong people. In all three, it was face recognition technology that told them they were right. Law enforcement officers in many U.S. states are not required to reveal that they used face recognition technology to identify suspects. Face recognition technology is the latest and most sophisticated version of biometric surveillance : using unique physical characteristics to identify individual people. It stands in a long line of technologies – from the fingerprint to the passport photo to iris scans – designed to monitor people and determine who has the right to move freely within and across borders and bounda...