SINCERETALK

In its landmark 6-3 immunity decision , the Supreme Court created a three-tiered framework under which presidents are absolutely immune from claims arising from their exclusive constitutional authority. They are entitled to presumptive immunity for all other official acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of their duties, but have no immunity for unofficial, private acts committed while in office . Trump’s personal lawsuit against the IRS seeking a preposterous $10 billion in personal damages, his negotiated “audit immunity” forgiving his personal tax evasion, and the $1.8 billion he’s snatching from taxpayers to pay J6 criminals who broke the law in his name were unofficial, private acts merely cloaked under presidential seal. Suing an agency you control, seeking larcenous damages, does not flow from any ‘core constitutional functions’ of the presidency or their outer perimeter; they were undertaken to benefit Trump and his family personally. After Trump’s personal IRS lawsuit was dism...

There are three avenues to claim money for damage after a car accident that wasn’t your fault. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/vxuVHGc via sinceretalk

South African actor and singer Letoya Makhene has once again found herself at the centre of public controversy following explosive custody claims made by her baby daddy, Johnson Masondo. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/h2DjlUz via sinceretalk

Puck Chief Political Columnist John Heilemann says the jabs poking President Donald Trump are not just coming from late-night comedians anymore. Much of America appears to be jumping in on the comedy, thanks to Trump’s wash of bad policies and his cratering polls . Heilemann, reacting to Trump’s latest gaffe of celebrating the pardon of 250 convicted criminals on the nation’s 250 th anniversary, told MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace that America appears to be treating Trump like an ongoing gag. “You know how seriously I take [society’s] signals, even if the signals themselves of what's going on are kind of risible and almost beyond parody,” said Heilemann. “These are signals, not noise. And I think they are telling us something about Trump's declining political power.” One of Trump’s greatest talents, said Heilemann, was reading society and knowing how to trigger and goad society into supporting him, often exciting the nation’s worst elements. “We understand what was so import...

After President Donald Trump helped nominate controversial Texas AG Ken Paxton as the Republican to run against Democrat James Talarico for Texas’ pivotal Senate seat, critics say the Lone Star state may now be in serious play . But it appears an unexpected new issue has reared its head to further complicate an easy Republican senatorial win in this red state — and nobody saw it coming. “My entire community is going to break rank. Everybody, all of us. We've had enough,” Texas Republican voter Cheryl Shadden told MS NOW reporter Josh Einiger . “… Red or blue. If you vote against data centers, we vote for you.” A lifelong conservative, Shadden is so angry she refuses to vote for Trump backed attorney general ken Paxton, Einiger reports. Instead, she's all in for Talarico to flip a seat controlled by Republicans since 1993. “You're willing at this point to forego basically every conservative issue and let the Senate fall into the hands of Democrats, if that's what it ta...

President Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump-linked institutions and Trump supporters is, according to one conservative, a gateway to something most right-wingers oppose: Reparations for the descendants of American slaves “It will set a precedent that a future president could use to bypass Congress and the courts to implement wide-reaching policies without congressional support—including race-based reparations,” wrote The Federalist Society's Darin R. Batram, who practices appellate and constitutional law in Washington, for The Wall Street Journal . Batram then reviewed how the fund was created, observing that Trump sued the IRS even though as president he had two conflicts of interest: First, that he was suing an agency he controlled; and second, that the Justice Department which he likewise controlled is supposed to defend the IRS from his litigation. Trump sued the IRS by alleging that it owed him $10 billion because a contractor associated with them leaked his ta...

MAGA accounts were flummoxed on X Wednesday after the White House posted a puzzling 11-second clip of an unknown observer traveling over sand while somebody appears to shout instructions from a megaphone amid the blare of distant sirens. The post contains the short cryptic inquiry: “Are you listening?” “I think The White House is teasing that an alien has escaped a government facility,” posted right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson on X. “DECLAS IS COMING … ALL OF IT!!” blared another MAGA account — although that same account also claimed former Intelligence Department head Tulsi Gabbard was “going to go out in a blaze of glory in her final month,” leading to “MASS ARRESTS … ELECTIONS OVERTURNED” with similar enthusiasm. “I am still trying to clean up the first word but I distinctly hear "where are they?” mulled another X commenter about the video. Other, more critical accounts, however, took that moment to vent their beef with the Trump administration. “Are YOU listening to We ...

President Donald Trump’s politicized Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who successfully accused Trump of sexual assault, but former Fox Host Gretchen Carlson said she was still waiting for the DOJ to do real work. The DOJ’s investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony tied to her two civil lawsuits against the president – one alleging he sexually abused her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and a second for defaming her when in 2019 he repeatedly denied the assault after he was convicted by a jury of his peers. Hearst Senior Data Analyst Editor and Columnist Phillip Bump called the probe “dubious” on a CNN panel, and suspected it would be quickly thrown out for “vindictive prosecution” if pursued. “We treat this like it's a real case because it's the Department of Justice. …. But there's no reason for us to assume the justice department is acting in go...

There’s no hiding it anymore: Republican strategist and pundit Scott Jennings showed calm acquiescence to the realization that President Donald Trump is almost single-handedly deep-sixing the GOP’s chances in November with his war in Iran . Even better, Jennings appeared to cheer Trump’s war, which has had a ripple effect on voters’ gas prices and grocery costs as the nation slides into November. “The Democrats will make a case and the people will vote. Under no circumstances would you ever want the commander in chief making military decisions based on how many people might vote on in a precinct somewhere in the middle of the country,” Jennings told a CNN panel. “That is. That is not how you would want national security being handled. So when I hear him say he's put politics aside to do what's best for national security, that's what a commander in chief should do. Fellow panelist Axios political reporter Alex Thomson, however, warned Jennings that that’s not the way Re...

President Donald Trump’s controversial $1.8 billion slush fund exists as a result of his suit against the IRS. But now 35 former federal judges say the creation of that fund demands a reinvestigation of Trump’s suit. “The Court was deceived,” say the bipartisan group of former judges. “Despite plaintiffs not having mentioned any settlement in their notice, the Department of Justice publicly announced a ‘settlement’ of this action shortly after Plaintiffs filed their dismissal. The judges are asking the judge who oversaw Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS to reopen the case and begin an inquiry into whether Trump’s deal to resolve it can be challenged as an act of fraud. “The purported ‘settlement’ that was publicly disclosed after this court dismissed this matter raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the court and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice,” the former judges legal team argues. The f...

President Donald Trump is trying to create a climate of fear in America, but his former Homeland Security chief of staff told MS NOW that the courts are punishing him for his effort. “Just think about this — our friend Kyle Cheney over at Politico, I think as of earlier this month, documented that there had been 10,000 cases judges had thrown out of people illegally put in immigration custody,” Miles Taylor told Nicole Wallace on MS NOW. “That's just one type of case — 10,000 thrown out. There's a 9-to-1 loss ratio when the government gets challenged on illegal detention. That is breathtaking. And that's just immigration.” He added, “Then you look at the big constitutional suits against this administration — big separation-of-powers issues, big violations of law. There are hundreds of those cases, I think north of 700 in the courts, and the administration has been losing those 2-to-1 in the lower courts. They are on a crime spree across this administration. The numbers sho...

The stress cracks are undeniably starting to show in the White House, if explosions from White House staff are an indicator. M S NOW anchor Nicole Wallace cited White House spokesperson Steven Cheung’s social media response to Mike Pompeo criticism of a deal being negotiated by the Trump administration to end the Iran war, telling the one-time Trump ally to “shut his stupid mouth.” “Mike Pompeo has no idea what the f—— he's talking about. He should shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals. He's not read into anything that's happening, so how would he know?” Wallace quoted Cheung saying . “Yeah, that's some top notch communicating from the communications director right there,” said Atlantic Staff Writer Tom Nichols, adding that the White House is clearly at the point of breaking over their botched Iran war, which has inflamed voters’ fuel and food prices. “[T]his was a little glimpse into what I think is kind of sweaty panic inside the White ...

President Donald Trump was the first reality TV star to become president, but when it comes to tabloid entertainment entering the White House, he may not be the last — at least according to one expert. After discussing how former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden recently appeared on Candace Owens' podcast to discuss the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, America’s relationship with Israel and the Charlie Kirk assassination, The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell , an expert on tracking voting patterns, argued that Owens may soon run for president in her Monday post. To illustrate her point, she quoted a number of voters, such as a Biden-to-Trump North Carolina voter named Mycal who said “I think Candace Owens is great. I would vote for her in a minute.” Another Biden-to-Trump North Carolina voter, Daniela, wrote that “if we would’ve swapped out Candace for Kamala, they would’ve had this in the bag.” Similarly a Trump-voting Gen Z woman, Kim from Virginia, adopted the popular far right ma...

President Donald Trump is accused of having a conflict of interest in a Trump Tower he plans on building the capital city of a former Soviet republic. Planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, the potential Trump Tower is slated to be constructed on land currently part-owned by the son of a leader who was sanctioned by the United States, according to a Monday report by The Guardian . Specifically it is owned by the International Charity Fund Cartu, which is solely owned by Cartu Group JSC. That group is in turn mainly owned (with a 35 percent stake) by Uta Ivanishvili, the eldest son of the oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is honorary chair of Georgia’s ruling party and regarded as the de facto leader of the Georgian government. While the younger Ivanishvili is not under sanctions, Trump’s willingness to do business with them constitutes a potential conflict of interest given that he is still serving as president. By contrast the White House has insisted that “neither the president ...

President Donald Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" slush fund appears to be the straw that broke the camel's back for many Republicans in Congress, but as a Republican strategist wrote for MS NOW , this pushback might, in reality, be more self-serving than noble. Susan Del Percio is a GOP strategist who serves as a political analyst for MS NOW, and on Monday, she published a new piece for the network digging into the pushback Trump's fund is getting from his own party. While Republicans have largely gone along with much of Trump's agenda, this latest cash grab for himself and his allies appears to have been too much for them, at last, with Senate Republicans torpedoing a key immigration funding bill over the situation and some lawmakers signing on to a plan to kill the fund altogether . "Senate Republicans typically offer more muted criticism, but this fund’s legal and ethical problems — or at least, the perception of those problems — was too m...

Amid reports that a new ceasefire deal was imminent, the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board warned President Donald Trump to avoid a deal that functions as an economic bailout for Iran. Over the weekend, Trump claimed that the U.S. and Iran were close to reaching a deal for a 60-day ceasefire in the conflict that has ravaged the world economy and sent oil prices skyrocketing . Iranian officials confirmed that talks were progressing, but stressed that major sticking points were still holding it back, adding that a deal was nowhere near as close as the president suggested. Nevertheless, news of an impending reprieve sent oil prices tumbling slightly. In response to these reports, the WSJ board — which is commonly viewed as a major conservative voice on economic and political issues — published a new piece, warning Trump that one aspect of the supposed plan would amount to an economic bailout for Iran, and would leave the U.S. with only the most extreme leverage to get a ...

Along with other currencies, the rand benefited as hopes of ‌a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz ⁠pushed oil prices below $100 per barrel, even as the US played down ⁠the chances of reaching an agreement with Iran soon. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/fjtoCEb via sinceretalk

A gunman opened fire near the White House, with US Secret Service agents killing the assailant in a shootout during which a bystander was also struck, authorities said. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/thCLaEM via sinceretalk

A law firm report into allegations of extortion at City Power has instead implicated utility spokesperson Isaac Mangena in alleged tender interference; towering schoolboy rugby star Sebastian Vermeulen is heading to the Sharks; Mel Viljoen marked her release from US immigration detention with Starbucks coffee; and a comparison of municipal bills in Johannesburg and Cape Town suggests fixed charges and rates are increasingly driving the cost of city living. from News24 News24/TopStories/rss https://ift.tt/fgZpqSH via sinceretalk

Is there a greater pleasure than watching a thundering narcissist stride proudly into his own pit? Texas conservative Nick Catoggio says he can’t wait to find out. “Specifically, I’m intrigued to see what happens to an unpopular president’s support when he starts an unpopular war that no one saw coming while struggling to resolve another unpopular war he started that no one saw coming,” Catoggio told the Dispatch . Having grown bored with the stalemate in Iran, Catoggio said a “frustrated” Donald Trump allegedly complained to advisers that the plan to squeeze Cuba into submission is going too slow, so he’s decided to speed things up by going “Venezuela” on them. This means indicting the nation’s leader on federal criminal charges as a pretext to kidnapping, positioning U.S. warships near it to intimidate leaders, and then asking Americans “to believe that a banana republic that can’t feed its people is a threat to the United States.” But Americans hate the idea of invading Cuba, with...

Former National Review writer Kevin D. Williamson says there just aren’t enough corruption counters to count all the corruption leeching out of the Trump White House these days. “To recap: Donald Trump has sued the Donald Trump administration over alleged wrongdoing by the Donald Trump administration, and an out-of-court settlement between Donald Trump and the Donald Trump administration will have Donald Trump’s DOJ ponying up the better part of $2 billion to be put into a fund controlled by Donald Trump and used for the benefit of — let’s check in here with dead-eyed White House trash panda J.D. Vance — “people who voted for Donald Trump and participated in the January 6th protests,” Williamson writes in the Dispatch . “We are going to need a whole brigade of additional tally-men to tally the bananas in this bananas republic,” added Williamson, a writer-in-residence at the conservative Enterprise Institute. The situation amounts to “one group of Trump sycophants negotiating with ano...

A disenchanted Ex-GOP party-switcher clearly had no patience for President Donald Trump’s opportunistic jab after losing his Democratic bid for governor. Former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan lost behind former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms , and the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports Trump could not wait to take to social media and kick Duncan when he was down. “It was a great time and success in Georgia on Tuesday night where Geoff Duncan, a failed Lieutenant Governor, and Disgrace to the Republican Party, ran for Governor, as a Democrat, and lost BIG — A solid 50 points! He wasn’t even close, and is now, I assume, officially out of Politics,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “He has now failed in two Parties. This guy was a LOSER from the first day I met him and now, we can call that official! President DONALD J. TRUMP But in his social media slap-back, Duncan was unrepentant in his decision to reject the Republican Party and the man it nowe serves. “Oddly enough Trump, losing by 50 pe...

President Donald Trump’s presence is becoming more and more of a liability in the state of Wisconsin, despite state voters choosing to send Trump to the White House in the last election. The president’s plummeting polls may have something to do with a Republican group having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in television ads in Milwaukee and Green Bay to salvage the campaign of Republican state attorney general candidate Eric Toney. “The Republican Attorney General Association will purchase $500,000 in ads in the coming months, targeting Attorney General Josh Kaul and what the organization says has been a weak-on-crime approach to his office over his last two terms,” reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . Wisconsin is one of four states with Democratic attorneys general where Trump won the 2024 vote, and the Sentinel reports RAGA and other GOP groups have chosen Wisconsin as one of five states for $11 million in ad buys — including Georgia, Kansas, Michigan and Minnesota — ...

President Donald Trump's former fixer and personal attorney, Michael Cohen told CNN that he is staking a claim to Trump’s $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, and he doesn’t care that Trump hates him. By filing papers, Cohen is joining the ranks of Trump ally Michael Caputo and January 6, 2021 rioters who are also looking for a taxpayer-funded payout for what they consider the weaponization of the justice system, despite outcry from critics. “The first time [I was wronged] … an IRS agent out of San Francisco downloaded my information, put it on a thumb drive, improperly used the finance system, and then gave that thumb drive to Michael Avenatti, who gave it to Ronan Farrow and then reported on it,” Cohen told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. The second incident, Cohen said, involved an individual who stole Donald Trump's tax documents, to leak to the press also stole Cohen’s. Tapper delivered some pushback, asking if Ronan Farrow's article resulted “in your being prosecuted?” “Wh...

Count Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) among the sparse but growing crew of Republicans with the courage to criticize President Donald Trump as he crushes the GOP. Bacon is also among the ranks of Republicans retiring this year , so he finds his courage “on the way out the door” as some critics have accused. Nevertheless, from the safety of his retirement, Bacon is lobbing major pushback against Trump’s controversial slush fund settlement proposal on CNN. “This whole thing smells,” Bacon told CNN. “You have the president is the is the plaintiff, but he's also in charge of the defendants. So he's, in a sense, negotiating with himself. And most people look at that. And that's not impartial. It surely looks partial. So there has to be some kind of arbitrator or some kind of like a judge or something that helps provide an impartial decision on who would get this money.” The announcement of the fund’s creation prompted condemnation among both Democrats and Republicans. On Thursday, Tru...

President Donald Trump is making mistakes as president that, according to his former Homeland Security Chief of Staff, will cost Americans their lives. Miles Taylor, who served during Trump’s first term, told MS NOW on Wednesday that the $1.776 billion slush fund that Trump created for his political supporters and possibly himself is more expensive than the government spends on important national security projects. "It's probably the biggest heist in American history of any kind, of any sort, that tells you a lot about the United States Congress,” Taylor said during an MS NOW appearance on Wednesday. “The Congress that spent most of its legislative time this week talking about the ballroom, trying to get ballroom funds passed instead of inflation and wars, or this heist." Taylor also denounced Trump’s gutting of America’s scientific infrastructure, particularly when it comes to fighting pandemics. “There are record numbers of measles cases in our country right now,” Tay...

President Donald Trump has recently had a series of successes campaigning against Republicans who displease him, with a majority going down to defeat in their primaries. Yet one Republican pollster argues that Trump, while winning these primary battles, may be losing the larger political war in the process. “We all have to say enough,” Republican-leaning pollster Frank Luntz told CNN anchor Boris Sanchez on Wednesday. “You should not be destroyed because you decide to enter politics. People need to be held accountable for what they do or don't do, for what they say or don't say. And I think that we're just pulling ourselves apart. I know I sound like a broken record because I've mentioned this before on your show, but it's all bad. It's all problematic, and it's not okay if the Republicans do it. It's not okay if the Democrats do it. We need to call an end to this.” While acknowledging that ‘politics is a tough business,” Luntz argued that it is un-demo...

President Donald Trump just walked back one of his most controversial immigration proposals — although he is not backing down altogether. Trump is no longer going to sign executive orders directing financial institutions to check customers for proof of citizenship, according to a report from Semafor . Wall Street and other major financial institutions opposed the proposal on the grounds that it would cost them money and be inefficient. Instead Trump’s new executive orders will require Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to guide financial institutions on ways to detect undocumented immigrants who ask for loans and open accounts. Bessent and other federal regulators will also need to change the Bank Secrecy Act to strengthen customer-due-diligence requirements and make it easier for financial institutions to acquire more information about customers’ backgrounds. Additionally, Trump will ask the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider modifying rules that clarify deportatio...