President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill did not have the support of 30 GOP senators and 200 House Republicans in 2021, but in November, several of those members took "credit for the historic investment they actively tried to stop," according to The New Republic.
Per the report, Senators Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and John Cornyn (R-TX), and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) all voted against the legislation, but took credit via social media once the bill had proven to successfully distribute "upward of $42 billion across America to expand internet access and help bring rural and isolated communities into the increasingly digital world."
Earlier this month, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) continued the pattern when she "'celebrated the impending arrival of' funding from a bill she voted against,'" according to Business Insider on March 18.
The Colorado lawmaker took credit for $20 million funding her former Colorado district would receive after voting against the legislation, calling it a "swamp omnibus" and "monstrosity," earlier this month.
Business Insider reported the bill she is now celebrating includes "more than $20 million for the Colorado district she's now abandoning."
Although Boebert currently represents Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, the MAGA congresswoman is vying for re-election in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, is seeking a third term via Colorado's 4th Congressional District, from which Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) officially resigned.
In a press release distributed by her office last week, The Independent reported Monday that Boebert said, "These include important federal resources for new water storage, improving water quality, funding water treatment plants, building new water supply lines, reducing congestion on I-70, and building roads and bridges. I'm grateful to all the local stakeholders who brought these important projects to my attention and that worked with my team and I throughout this process to ensure that 10 out of 10 of our requests were successfully funded in public law. Can't wait for the ribbon cuttings and to see these priorities come to fruition."
When The Independent interviewed Boebert about publicly taking credit for the bill, the Republican lawmaker "bragged about bringing the money back to" her state, saying, "Sure did, I fought to get it in there, did I not. If I wasn’t working on it, then it wouldn’t have been in there."
The news outlet notes when Boebert was asked why she originally smacked down the legislation, she replied, "I didn't agree to the swampy way it came to the floor but I fought to get the stuff in the bills and it's there. And Colorado is going to benefit from it.”
Former President Donald Trump has the swing state of Michigan on his mind and a particular voting bloc he'd like to sway, according to new reports.
State GOP have been urged to make strides to win over “nontraditional Republicans voters and traditional Democrat voters — specifically Black voters — around the city and state, state GOP leaders said on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
“The president believes that there’s a case to be made for reaching out to African American voters and to Hispanic voters, whether it’s in Saginaw or going into Wayne County or Muskegon, anywhere across the state,” said Michigan's new GOP chair Pete Hoekstra, speaking from a strategy conference in Florida.
“This meeting was about let’s talk about southeast Michigan and creating relationships, and then make sure that we continue this dialogue over the next seven and a half months,” said Hoekstra.
The Trump campaign appears to be “very interested in Wayne,” which is home to Detroit and the Democrats’ largest base, having voted nearly 70% for Biden in 2020, according to Hoekstra. Other focuses are Saginaw, Kent and Ottawa counties, places where Trump did well in 2016 before losing support in 2020.
Republicans believe President Joe Biden is vulnerable with minority voters for his efforts to deal with the Israel-Hamas war that continues to rage without a cease fire in sight.
Michigan leaders are already pouncing on what has been viewed as discontent amongst Democrats where only 58% of Black adults approve Biden’s performance, according to a February AP-NORC poll.
That's markedly down from 94% in January 2021, the Associated Press reports.
The poll found that only 24% of younger Black voters had a favorable view of Trump.
Biden apparently angered some of the Saginaw community members by spending time on a porch with two local white leaders and failing to attend a Black church service, according to the report. However, Biden did spend some time with a Black family at a local public golf course.
Hoekstra said the Florida gathering put Michigan on the map for the Trump campaign to strategically flip back to the GOP.
“This meeting was about let’s talk about southeast Michigan and creating relationships, and then make sure that we continue this dialogue over the next seven and a half months,” he said.
“Michiganders remember Trump’s racist record, and they’re not going to fall for his desperate pandering," she stated. "As president, Trump peddled bigoted policies, tried to cut health care for thousands of Black Michiganders, and sent thousands of Michigan jobs overseas."
"Folks here know Joe Biden has delivered where Trump failed, and they’ll reject this cheap effort to win their votes in November.”
House Republicans could be on the brink of "waving the white flag" as their efforts to impeach President Joe Biden look dead, Steve Benen wrote for MSNBC's MaddowBlog on Monday.
The GOP, led by Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), have been pursuing impeachment on the theory that Biden laundered international bribes through his son Hunter's foreign business dealings — but there is no concrete evidence yet to support this.
Multiple hearings saw Republican star witnesses like former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski going off the rails as scorn mounted for an effort that has yet to produce a smoking gun.
There aren't many places left they can take the investigation, Benen wrote.
"Following months of humiliating failures, Politico recently reported that behind the scenes, GOP officials were quietly admitting that Comer’s campaign against President Joe Biden has been 'hobbled by embarrassing setbacks.' Punchbowl News, meanwhile, quoted a House GOP leadership aide who said Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan were 'becoming the chairmen who cried wolf.'" Indeed, wrote Benen, some pro-Trump Republicans are publicly admitting this isn't in the cards, with Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) saying a vote on impeachment is "not gonna happen."
One other option they have is to make a criminal referral to the Justice Department and hope they indict Biden — which has always been Comer's backup plan, according to Benen.
"This will almost certainly fail," added Benen. "If the Oversight Committee chairman couldn’t clear a modest threshold while trying to make his case to his own Republican colleagues, what makes him think he’ll clear a higher threshold while making a pitch to federal prosecutors — who are required to actually have and present real evidence in a courtroom while complying with legal standards?"
Ultimately, Benen concluded, if Comer chooses to make a referral rather than hold an impeachment vote, "When prosecutors put Comer’s pitch in a circular file, it will quietly bring the entire fiasco to an ignominious end."
Former President Donald Trump on Monday was slammed Monday after claiming the government search for top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort was illegal under the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
While talking with reporters shortly after appearing in court, Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that the multiple indictments he's facing across four jurisdictions were all orchestrated by President Joe Biden.
Trump argued the 2022 FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago resort to retrieve documents, which included nuclear weapons program secrets, was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
"They raided my house in violation of a thing called the Fourth Amendment!" Trump complained. "Not allowed to do that! They raided my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. No notice, no nothing, they raided it! I can't believe it! Nobody can believe it!"
This is not the first time Trump has suggested the search was illegal.
A Poynter Institute fact check from 2022 notes Trump tried to compare the search to the infamous Watergate burglary during President Richard Nixon's administration, an argument that multiple experts said did not hold up.
The warrant would have gone through a lengthy vetting process before being approved by a federal judge who found evidence of probable cause, as is dictated by the Fourth Amendment, former prosecutor Barbara McQuade told the fact checker.
"To conduct a search like this, agents would have been required to obtain a search warrant from a federal judge, and for the judge to make a finding of probable cause," McQuade told Poynter's fact checkers. "The judge would have reviewed a detailed affidavit setting forth the facts to establish probable cause. Probable cause means a reasonable likelihood that a crime has been committed and that evidence will be found at the location to be searched."
Thus it was not surprising that when Trump argued the search was illegal because he was not given "notice," he was met with scorn on social media.
"Oh yes," quipped Howell Ellerman, "let’s give the subjects of warrants notice of the search."
"Wow so he knows there's other amendments?" added Joe Mama. "Thought they just cared about the Second."
"It’s not a legal search or seizure if there’s a warrant!" said Sheila Seymour. "I’m going to side with the fbi they covered their bases before going down to the dump in Palm Beach."
A Georgia judge has set a Thursday hearing to consider dismissing a conspiracy case against Donald Trump on First Amendment grounds.
On Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ordered the hearing for March 28. McAfee is expected to consider motions from Donald Trump and other defendants in an election interference case.
Trump's motion asked the court to dismiss the case based on his First Amendment right to free speech.
McAfee has dismissed two similar motions by co-defendants Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell. Both co-defendants later pleaded guilty.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Trump would have to admit that his claims about the 2020 election being rigged were false to pursue a First Amendment defense.
"Here, the indictment's recitation of supposedly 'false' statements and facts, undisputed solely for purposes of a First Amendment-based general demurrer/motion to dismiss, show that the prosecution of President Trump is premised on content-based core political speech and expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment," Trump attorney Steven Sadow argued in a court filing.
Sadow asserted that the remedy for false speech "is speech that is true … not a state (racketeering) prosecution against the former president of the United States."
The Fulton County case focuses on efforts to overturn the election results in which Trump was defeated by Democrat Joe Biden.
Specifically, officials in Georgia, including Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, have scrutinized a series of actions and communications by Trump and his allies aimed at influencing the state's election outcome. A pivotal moment in the investigation was a January 2021 phone call made by Trump to Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. During this call, Trump suggested that Raffensperger "find" enough votes to reverse Biden's narrow victory in the state.
CNN cut off live coverage of Donald Trump's public remarks at one of his Manhattan real estate properties, claiming that most of what he was saying was untrue.
The former president spoke at 40 Wall Street after appearing in court in the Stormy Daniels hush money case and following an appeals court ruling that dramatically reduced the bond he must post to avoid forfeiting some of his real estate holdings as a penalty in his fraud trial.
But CNN cut him off halfway though and and launched into a fact check of his claims.
"Violent crime is flourishing and we can't have that, you can't have that," Trump said. "No city should have that and it's happening in other cities, but not with the lawfare, the lawfare that they're doing is incredible.
"So they could have done this in the case of the trial that we just left, one of the many that it goes on — every single one of them is run by [President Joe] Biden and his thugs, the only way they think they can get elected, and I think so far it's backfiring because the people of this country understand it. It's backfiring, but they're being run and they're running all of these different cases, so ridiculous, the cases, every one of them is ridiculous. You take a look at any one of them and you say, any one of them, it wouldn't make any difference. This is all weaponization of DOJ and FBI."
"They raided my house in violation of a thing called the Fourth Amendment, not allowed to do that," he added. "They raided my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago — no notice, no nothing, they raided it. I can't believe it, nobody can believe it, and we'll see how that all works out in the end, but it's illegal what they're doing."
"It's criminal what they're doing and it's never been done before in this country, you can't have an election in the middle of a political season [sic]. We just had Super Tuesday now we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already and we had Louisiana the other day a couple of days ago, and we won in a record number, the highest number ever recorded, but we're in the middle of an election right now, and we're fighting crooked Joe Biden, who's the worst president in the history of our country by far, who's let this country go to hell. The borders, millions and millions of people coming in from prisons, from mental institutions that terrorists, many people coming in from prisons and mental institutions, think of it, and terrorists are coming into our country, and this guy's just letting them come in by the millions. I think we have 15 million people already."
At that point CNN cut away to its studio team, and anchor Boris Sanchez explained that the ex-president was making too many false claims.
"Trump laying out a plethora of falsehoods," he said. "Perhaps the most blatant one that, all of these criminal cases were orchestrated by President Biden. There is no evidence to support that. Just about every single one of the criminal cases went before grand juries that then elected to indict the former president, but of course he is using this moment as an opportunity to campaign, as we've often seen him do before."
CNN's Kaitlan Collins then delivered an additional fact check on the former president's claims, which she said he often repeated in campaign rally speeches and on social media.
"Some of the classics there, including his claim that he repeats on a near daily basis this is about other countries emptying out their mental institutions and sending those people across the border, something his campaign has never been able to provide any factual basis for," Collins said. "But on the task at hand [Monday], which is these criminal cases and the fact that his first criminal case is going to be starting in three weeks with that jury selection after that decision was made here in the courtroom behind us by Judge Juan Merchan."
Trump criticized Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged him in the hush money case, and made misleading comments about former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz's book about the investigation.
"[He] then detailed a book about the investigation they had been potentially pursuing against Donald Trump, including that they once considered bringing a racketeering charge against him," Collins said. "Trump did not mention that part of Mark Pomerantz's book, but clearly his anger here is at the judge and the fact that Judge Merchan did not allow this trial to get delayed any further than what had already was, which I should note it was supposed to start today."
Liberal economist Paul Krugman has aggressively defended President Joe Biden's economic policies in his New York Times column, often emphasizing that the United States, under Biden's watch, has enjoyed its lowest unemployment figures in more than half a century.
But Krugman has also lamented the fact that many of Donald Trump's voters wrongly believe that he would be better for them on the economy — a subject the economist addressed during an appearance on The New Republic's podcast.
In the podcast, posted on Monday, Krugman told host Greg Sargent that pro-Trump voters have "amnesia" about the economic conditions the U.S. faced in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"He was given a lethal crisis," Krugman recalled. "He responded with denial, dereliction, fantasy solutions. And probably, thousands for sure — probably hundreds of thousands of Americans are dead because of Trump's bad response.
“And yet, somehow, that has been erased from a lot of people's memory. They don't remember how actually horrifying it was to watch the president of the United States sort of refusing to deal realistically with this public health crisis."
Krugman went on to lay out some ways in which he believes that a second Trump term would be bad for the 2024 GOP nominee's supporters economically, including the return of "Trump tariffs" that were "incompetent."
Krugman told Sargent, "I get really annoyed at the way everybody now calls Trump a populist. Because he hasn't actually done anything you would call populist in the normal sense…. He basically outsourced actual policy to ideological hardline right-wing Republicans in Congress. So, what you actually got from the Trump Administration might as well have been a Paul Ryan Administration plus tariffs."
Sargent noted that Trump is "floating cuts to Social Security" and has "threatened to repeal Obamacare," asking Krugman, "Wouldn't these policies sell out Trump's blue-collar white base perhaps as much or more than any other demographic?"
Krugman responded, "Oh, sure…. The people who really depend on this stuff, whether it's Social Security — blue-collar workers, that is their retirement plan. They don't have pensions. They don't have significant 401ks. What they have is Social Security.…. Medicare is their retirement health care…. Food stamps are a prime source of support in a lot of the American Heartland for less educated workers."
The New York Times columnist continued, "So, these are the people who would really be very badly hurt by the Republican study committee agenda, but they don't seem to know it. They don't know that that's what a second Trump Administration would mean to them.
The $454 million fraud judgment comes due for Donald Trump on Monday, and he started off the day with a fresh complaint about his legal predicament.
The former president has already filed notice that he would appeal the judgment from New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who found him liable for habitually inflating his assets to obtain business loans, but he has been unable to secure a bond worth 110 percent of the penalty to block the attorney general from enforcing the court order during the appeal.
"These are Rigged cases, all coordinated by the White House and DOJ for purposes of Election Interference," Trumpposted on Truth Social. "THE NUMBER ENGORON SET IS FRAUDULENT. It should be ZERO, I DID NOTHING WRONG! The D.A. Case, that I am going to today, should be dismissed. No crime. Our Country is CORRUPT!"
New York Attorney General Letitia James could have enforced the judgment after it became final last month, but she extended a 30-day grace period that expires Monday, although she's not expected to take aggressive action immediately.
Trump followed up that post about a half hour later with another rant complaining about his fraud penalty and his upcoming trial in Georgia in the election subversion case.
"Crooked Pols!!! There should be no FINE," Trump posted. "Did nothing wrong! Why should I be forced to sell my 'babies' because a CORRUPT NEW YORK JUDGE & A.G. SET A FAKE AND RIDICULOUS NUMBER. 'TAKE HIS CASH SO THAT HE CAN’T USE IT TO DEFEAT HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT, CROOKED JOE BIDEN.' ELECTION INTERFERENCE, ALL HEADED UP BY THE WHITE HOUSE - THIS INCLUDES FANI AND THE CORRUPT MANHATTAN D.A. BRAGG ADMITTED THERE WAS NO CRIME, WAS MORTIFIED BY WHAT MARK POMERANCE DID - AND HE SHOULD BE. WITCH HUNT!
The ex-president's lawyers have told the court that more than 30 bond companies have refused to extend the cash necessary to halt enforcement because much of his wealth is tied up in real estate, which insurers rarely accept as collateral.
The appeals court could reduce the penalty, but that decision is not expected until later this week, at the earliest.
Trump is also expected to attend a court hearing Monday in Manhattan, three weeks before the start of his criminal trial related to the hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
That trial had been scheduled to start Monday, but it was delayed after the Department of Justice turned over additional evidence earlier this month.
Donald Trump faces twin legal crises on Monday in New York, where he could see the possible seizure of his storied properties over a massive fine as he separately fights to delay a criminal trial even further.
The 77-year-old real estate magnate, who has once again clinched the Republican nomination despite facing a raft of legal charges, has already been hit by heavy fines in two civil cases.
In his case over business fraud, his lawyers on Monday must either prove that he can guarantee payment of the $454 million fine or face the possible seizure of some of his assets.
Judge Arthur Engoron imposed that fine after finding Trump and his two adult sons guilty in a non-jury trial.
If Trump is unable to provide the needed bond -- and his lawyers have said they have tried in vain to secure one -- then "obviously his image would change dramatically, I would think, for many people, because he has said that he's a billionaire and very successful," Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor and author of the book "The Trump Indictments," told AFP.
"And if he cannot post a bond in any amount, that obviously is a huge problem."
Separately, a criminal court in Manhattan convenes at 9:30 am (1330 GMT) to set a new date in his historic trial over payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
'Prospect of humiliation'
The former president took to his Truth Social platform Saturday to again blast Judge Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James in no uncertain terms.
In one all-caps message he denounced the judge as "GROSSLY INCOMPETENT AND CORRUPT," and in another he said James "GOES AFTER TRUMP FOR DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG!"
Trump regularly rails against a judicial system he says is "fixed" against him. He has said James -- who is Black -- is "racist," and accused Engoron of being a "crooked judge" controlled by Democrats.
Despite Trump's supposed inability to secure a bond, he bragged online on Friday that due to "hard work, talent, and luck" he had almost $500 million in cash, which he said he had planned to spend on his election campaign against President Joe Biden.
The judge, he said, "knew this (and) wanted to take it away from me."
Trump got some positive financial news on Friday, when it was announced that Truth Social would finally go public through a merger, a transaction that could net him billions of dollars.
He cannot tap into the funds for six months, but it potentially could help him secure a bond.
If he fails to do so, Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond law school said Trump "confronts the prospect of humiliation and serious financial harm."
James could order a freeze on his bank accounts, or move to seize some of his New York properties.
His lawyers have pursued every possible avenue to delay his many trials -- if possible until after the November 5 presidential elections.
The trial involving Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was originally set to begin Monday, but has been pushed back at least a month. He stands accused of illegally using campaign funds to secure her silence about an alleged affair.
The former president, who has denied having the affair, potentially could face a prison sentence of up to four years if convicted.
His legal team is requesting a delay of at least three months to allow them time to study thousands of pages of evidence belatedly provided by prosecutors.
They also want the trial to wait until the US Supreme Court rules on his claim to have absolute immunity for actions taken while he was president.
WASHINGTON — Some of former President Donald Trump’s fiercest allies in Congress may be multi-millionaires, but that doesn’t mean they’re opening up their wallets for the reality TV star turned contestant for America's most indicted.
“There’s only so much money,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story.
With creditors demanding a $454 million bond as his appeals slowly wind through the courts, Trump’s personal deficits have been the talk of the Capitol in recent days.
“Hopefully, I never get into that problem myself,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story while riding an elevator in the Capitol.
“You’re not planning to cut him a check?” Raw Story asked.
“No. I don't have enough. Mine would be just a blip,” Tuberville — who’s been estimated to have a net worth of around $20 million — said. “But if I could help, I’d help, maybe.”
Most Republicans on Capitol Hill now parrot the former president’s rhetoric, dismissing Trump’s legal problems as “lawfare” — think lawsuits instead of bullets — by the left and presenting him as a modern day martyr.
“Listen, I’m sympathetic with the lawfare that is being waged against him. Actually quite sympathetic. This is the price he's paying for being involved in politics and running for the office again,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “You could argue it's grossly unfair for him to have to pick up the full tab, so I personally don't have a problem with him explicitly asking for support.”
“Are you gonna donate?” Raw Story asked the former CEO worth an estimated $78 million.
“I've paid my price,” Johnson — who the Select Jan. 6 Committee implicated in helping carry out Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector scheme in 2021 — said through a smile and chuckle.
While Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is estimated to be worth more than $300 million — making him the wealthiest sitting U.S. senator — Trump shouldn’t come shaking his tin cup around the former chief executive of the Sunshine State.
“I’m optimistic he’ll figure it out. He's a pretty resourceful guy,” Scott (R-FL) told reporters just off the Senate floor Thursday.
“Would you donate?” Raw Story asked.
“He's a resourceful guy,” Scott answered with a laugh before heading into the chamber to vote.
Personal and political money troubles collide
Trump hasn’t directly asked his Senate allies to chip in to help him pay his civil penalties, fines and lawyers, which now top half a billion dollars — including interest, which Forbes reports is ticking up at $111,984 a day.
But the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee finds himself in a potentially cataclysmic financial mess that mixes both his personal fortune and the finances of his presidential campaign.
During the past two years, Trump’s political operation has spent upward of $80 million on legal fees — an astounding sum for anyone, let alone a presidential candidate. Every dollar Trump’s political machine spends on his four separate criminal cases and various civil court matters is a dollar not spent on attacking Democrats or boosting Republicans.
Conversations in conservative circles have often focused on fundraising for Trump’s legal defense instead of beating President Joe Biden, which has some Republicans fearing the GOP will suffer up and down the ballot come November.
And while it’s still early in this general election and Trump’s poll numbers have looked decent, his fundraising has been anemic. Similarly, Biden’s poll numbers are lagging, even as his campaign coffers are overflowing.
Biden’s warchest is currently triple that of Trump's. The latest Federal Election Commission filings show Biden’s campaign and joint fundraising committee are sitting on $155 million compared to the $41.9 million cash on hand at Trump’s disposal. Such figures don't include money raised by committees the candidates don't directly control, such as supportive super PACs.
Trump may have had a good fundraising month in February, netting upward of $20 million in tandem with his joint fundraising committee, but he still found himself outraised by $3 million by former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) before she dropped out of the GOP presidential primary — withholding both her endorsement and her dollars.
“I think we just have to look at the hard math. Democrats are hitting on all cylinders in terms of fundraising, so we've already got a structural challenge where we're not raising as much as them,” Sen. Tillis of North Carolina said as he entered an elevator in the Capitol. “These races are big races. They cost a lot of money. You gotta mobilize voters, so I'm sure it's a concern for them, too.”
Besides begging for longshot loans, selling off assets and engaging in other creative monetary maneuvers, the former president is now leaning on the sale of $399 gold sneakers and a GoFundMe with an eye-popping $355 million goal.
It’s still unclear if Trump can wiggle out of the straight jacket ensnaring him through the newly announced merger between his fledgling social media company, Truth Social, and Digital World Acquisition Corporation. While the deal could eventually net Trump some $3 billion, his hands are currently tied by an agreement constraining him from selling his shares for the next six months — when the earliest of 2024 early votes are slated to be cast.
Instead of focusing on his reelection, Fox News hosts, such as Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, have been pushing their massive audiences to donate to Trump’s legal fund.
They’re not the only ones thinking about Donald’s debt these days.
'Trump’s a movement'
Per his usual, Trump has his fierce defenders who say everything’s fine.
“Trump’s a movement. It’s not just the candidate. He’s a movement,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) — who served as Trump’s first Interior secretary until scandals ended his tenure in the executive branch — told Raw Story. “I'm not worried.”
“You gonna cut a check for his legal fund?” Raw Story inquired.
“I’ll support my president,” Zinke — who’s estimated to own assets topping $30 million — said.
Other rich Republicans also aren’t entirely slamming the door shut on providing future legal aid to Trump.
“I am confident the [former] president will be able to figure out how to manage his campaign and finances to be successful,” Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) told Raw Story while walking through the Capitol.
While he may not be as wealthy as his Senate counterparts, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) has made millions through his gun store and firing range, which means he can’t give Trump in-kind donations because it’s illegal for the former president to even “receive” a firearm or ammunition while under felony indictments.
Budd’s not looking to arm Trump for warfare though.
“Oh my goodness, it's complete lawfare,” Budd (R-NC) told Raw Story on his way to a Senate vote.
The freshman senator dismisses fears from some in the GOP that Trump’s legal fundraising is handicapping the party ahead of November.
“No. Completely separate,” Budd said.
Many in the GOP are banking on Biden foiling his own reelection bid. They expect the grassroots to be there for Trump — no matter the mind-numbing sums he’s scrambling to raise — just as they’ve been there for him in past fundraising appeals.
“I think that his support that he has at the grassroots will give him the money he needs,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Raw Story. “And I think that there's a big anti-Biden movement. A downturn in money's not going to make a big difference.”
Other Republicans are indifferent or awkwardly distancing themselves from the troubled Trump — and the entire GOP through him, the party’s defendant-in-chief — brand.
“I haven’t thought about it at all,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Raw Story.
“I didn't know about that either,” Collins said in reference to the “bloodbath” earlier this month when Trump ousted Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as Republican National Committee — or RNC — co-chairwoman.
“Oh, yeah?” Raw Story asked. “Are you still a Republican?”
“It’s not uncommon when there's a new chair for there to be a major staff turnover,” Collins replied without answering our question.
RNC shakeup sends shivers through old Republican guard
Campaigns are more than dollars and cents though, and Trump’s ongoing personal shakeup of the RNC has unsettled many veteran Republicans.
Among country club Republicans and critics alike, this is just par for Trump’s political course.
“I don't think there's any norm or barrier that former President Trump won't be ready and willing to cross if it's in his personal, financial or egotistical interest,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told Raw Story while walking to a vote on the Senate floor.
Romney is dismissed as a disloyal “Never Trump”-er by many in his own party. Besides McDaniel being his niece, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee is retiring at the end of this term.
Romney may be a critic, but he says he’s not given up on his party yet, even as the Republican Party has morphed into something unrecognizable from his time as the GOP standard-bearer.
Romney says he loves his party and fears Trump’s self-serving moves will be felt by conservatives for decades.
“The party has to exist beyond and after Donald Trump and I are gone, and so weakening the party, making it a personal appendage, is not a good thing,” Romney — who’s estimated to be worth more than $170 million, making him one of the top 10 wealthiest senators — said.
Even though he lost to then-President Barack Obama in 2012, Romney credits the RNC with helping turn out his supporters.
“It was a very helpful organization in turning out the vote, so it helped raise money for me and it turned out the vote. To win elections, it’s all about organization. Ground game still makes a difference,” Romney said. “Once I became the presumptive nominee, we worked hand in glove.”
Romney did that without placing any of his children at the helm of the RNC.
“Having family members serve in the administration looked like nepotism. Didn't seem to bother him. Didn't seem to bother the voters who put him there,” Romney said.
Not all Democrats are dancing
On the other side of the proverbial aisle, many liberal talking heads are giddy watching Trump scramble for millions and millions of pennies. But Democrats in tight races this fall know they can’t count on Trump’s legal woes to win.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is fighting for his political life in Montana. He’s raised upwards of $5 million four quarters in a row now, and he’s not letting up just because of Trump’s mounting legal bills.
“I don’t know that it makes a lot of difference, actually,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) told Raw Story.
Democrats also have other fears.
“Depends on whether he’s busy raising money for his legal fees instead of for his campaign, but it does concern me that it will be added financial pressure compromising him,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Raw Story on his way to meetings on the Senate side of the Capitol Thursday.
Schiff, who recently clinched a spot on the ballot in California’s U.S. Senate general election in November, is a Harvard educated lawyer who was the impeachment manager for Trump’s first impeachment.
“He’s always been all about the money,” Schiff said. “But now there will be even greater risk that he trades American interests for money.”
Though geothermal represents only a tiny fraction of current U.S. energy production, several businesses and President Joe Biden's administration are betting on technological advances to make it a backbone of the green transition.
"If we can capture that heat beneath our feet, it can be the clean, reliable, baseload-scalable power for everybody from industries to households," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told the CERAWeek conference in Houston this past week.
Her department estimates that geothermal energy could overtake hydroelectric and solar power in the country by 2050.
Geothermal, which draws on naturally high temperatures underground and is used mainly to produce electricity and heat buildings, amounted to only 1.6 percent of U.S. energy consumption in 2022.
To ramp up production, the US government has invested more than $200 million since 2018 in an experimental site in Utah involving the drilling of exceptionally deep wells -- an approach different from the traditional, near-surface geothermal energy.
Scientists at the site have been testing, in real-world conditions, a technology known as Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), similar but different from hydraulic fracturing techniques, also known as fracking, which is used to extract oil and natural gas.
The approach involves injecting water into naturally very hot rocks -- often deeper than two miles (3 kilometers), which does not require a nearby hot spring or underground reservoir.
"In theory, you could make geothermal anywhere," said Francesco d'Avack, an analyst with S&P Global Commodity Insights.
"It also reduces the upfront risk," he said -- that is, the risk of drilling and finding nothing, which has been a deterrent for some investors in the past.
Granholm, in her speech to the CERAWeek energy conference, underscored another advantage: the US government is allowing companies to convert permits for oil or gas exploration into geothermal licenses -- reducing paperwork and delays.
In a report this past week, the Energy Department said EGS use fewer chemical additives than classic fracking, a system deplored by environmentalists.
It added that geothermal drilling does not release hydrocarbons, as fracking does.
And unlike solar or wind power, geothermal provides a steady flow of energy regardless of weather or time of day.
- 'A big unlock' -
As for cost, the U.S. government estimates it will drop from a current range of $70 to $100 per megawatt hour (MWh) to $45 by 2035.
The use of existing drilling technology makes geothermal both quicker and cheaper to develop.
"We took the oil and gas operation models, we changed the drill bits a little bit and... we demonstrated a completely new application," said Jigar Shah of the Energy Department's loan office. "That's a big unlock" -- a big leap forward.
"The US has been a first mover" with the new technology, said Ajit Menon, a specialist in subterranean development with Texas-based energy company Baker Hughes, which has invested in geothermal energy.
There are already EGS sites in other countries, notably France, but they're considered experimental.
A possible risk of geothermal drilling projects is that, as with fracking, they can cause seismic activity.
In France's Alsace region, a deep-drilling project was abandoned in 2020 after it provoked several tremors.
The US Energy Department requires all funded projects follow a mitigation protocol to address induced seismicity and is funding research on the issue.
It says no community has felt seismicity occurring near a DOE-funded project.
Several US and Canadian start-ups are vying for position in this budding market and have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.
One of them, Fervo Energy, recently linked its Nevada site to the electric grid. The project was developed in collaboration with Google, which needs huge amounts of electricity for its data centers. So far, though, the site is generating only 3.5 megawatts.
As the geothermal supply begins to grow, demand is following. Google, Microsoft and steel-maker Nucor announced Tuesday that they will jointly be purchasing geothermal energy.
Shah pointed out that the three big firms are "willing to pay a premium" for the energy, and that "gets the private sector excited."
"The new or next generation market is still quite open," said Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, which specializes in subterranean energy. One reason, she said, is that "we need that first commercial facility, and there hasn't been one" yet.
Once one company shows how it can be successfully done, others will follow, she added.
With the sector still so small, "your primary objective is to grow it right," said Menon. "Not only for you -- for everyone."d
Experiments in the weightless environment of space have led to "crazy progress" in the fight against cancer, NASA officials said at a recent event highlighting an important and personal initiative of US President Joe Biden.
Space is "a unique place for research," astronaut Frank Rubio said at the event in Washington.
The 48-year-old, a physician and former military helicopter pilot, conducted cancer research during his recent mission to the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting some 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth's surface.
Not only do cells there age more rapidly, speeding up research, their structures are also described as "purer."
"They all don't clump together (as they do) on Earth because of gravity. They are suspended in space," enabling better analysis of their molecular structures, NASA chief Bill Nelson told AFP in an interview.
Research conducted in space can help make cancer drugs more effective, Nelson added.
Pharmaceutical giant Merck has conducted research on the ISS with Keytruda, an anti-cancer drug that patients now receive intravenously.
Its key ingredient is difficult to transform into a liquid. One solution is crystallization, a process often used in drug manufacturing.
In 2017, Merck conducted experiments to see if the crystals would form more rapidly in space than on Earth.
Nelson used two pictures to demonstrate the difference. The first showed a blurry, transparent spot. But on the second, a large number of clear gray spots had emerged.
That photo showed that smaller, more uniform crystals were forming in space -- and "forming better," Nelson said.
Thanks to such research, researchers will be able to make a drug that can be administered by injection in a doctor's office instead of through long and painful chemotherapy treatments, he added.
Merck identified techniques that can help it imitate the effects of these crystals on Earth as it works to develop a drug that can be stored at room temperature.
Still, it can take years between research in space and the wide availability of a drug developed there.
Cancer research in space began more than 40 years ago but has become "revolutionary" in recent years, said Nelson, a former Democratic senator who traveled into space himself in 1986.
"We use the languages of space to tell the limits of cancer," added W. Kimryn Rathmell, director of the National Cancer Institute, a federally funded research body.
- 'Moonshot' -
Biden launched a "Cancer Moonshot" initiative in 2016, when he was then vice president, echoing a speech by John F. Kennedy some 60 years earlier outlining the bold goal of sending an American to the moon.
The goal of the "Moonshot" is to halve the death rate from cancer over the next quarter century, saving four million lives, according to the White House.
The battle against cancer, the country's second-leading cause of death after heart disease, hits home for Biden, who lost his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015.
"We all know someone -- and most of us love someone -- who has battled this terrible disease," Xavier Becerra, Biden's secretary of health and human services, told reporters Thursday at NASA headquarters.
"As we did during the race to the Moon," he added, "we believe our technology and scientific community are capable of making the impossible a reality when it comes to ending cancer as we know it."
Political realities may hinder that ambitious goal, though. Congress has earmarked just over $25 billion to NASA for 2024, two percent less than the previous year and well below what the White House had sought.
But Rathmell of the Cancer Institute holds out hope.
"The ability of space to capture the imagination is huge," she said. And space cancer research has a firm goal: "It can save lives."
Writing on Twitter, Morrow argued that reporters are "trying to create 'gotcha moments' out of old comments taken out of context, made in jest, or never made in the first place."
She argued that they're doing this to "hide the radicalism of the Democrat platform."
In reality, there is nothing in Morrow's old posts to indicate that she was speaking in jest.
In one post, Morrow responded to a question about whether she'd "follow Joe Biden's advice and wear a mask" to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by writing, "Never. We need to follow the Constitution's advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!!"
There is no section of the Constitution that discusses murdering public officials for advising that people wear masks to stop the spread of a disease that killed over one million Americans.
In another post, Morrow rejected the idea of throwing Obama into prison as being insufficiently extreme.
"I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad," she said. "I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death."
"Do you still stand by your comments about former President Barack Obama and that he should be executed, calling for the death of of other presidents?" asked Prokupecz.
"Do you know that education is a problem in this entire country?" replied Morrow. "So maybe they need to focus on what's going on in your state of New York, which by the way is where I grew up. Maybe they need to focus on what's going on in California, where children are not getting the education that they need. Maybe they needed to focus on what they're doing in Michigan. Because right now in North Carolina, I'm focused on helping the families of North Carolina for their children to get quality education for them to be safe and for us to be sure that our money is going into the classroom rather than bureaucracies."
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