Los Angeles (AFP) - A typhoon that slammed into Guam, knocking out power and flooding buildings with a powerful storm surge, was moving away Thursday -- leaving residents of the US Pacific Ocean territory to survey the damage.
Governor Lou Leon Guerrero was set to venture out when conditions allow to see what damage has been wrought on the island, a key US military outpost and home to 170,000 people.
The governor and civil defence groups will look for "any major damages or blocked roadways in the wake of Typhoon Mawar," a statement said Thursday.
"As Guam received the full brunt of the typhoon overnight, the assessment will help determine what damages may have occurred."
Mawar brought winds of up to 225 kilometers (140 miles) an hour, the US National Weather Service reported, generating waves nine meters (30 feet) high.
There were no reported deaths or injuries.
At one of the island's many hotels, the 30-floor Dusit Thani Guam Resort housing about 300 guests, desk clerk Casey Hattori said the lobby was inundated with a foot of water, even with the front door barricaded with boards and bags of concrete. Outside, trees snapped in howling wind.
"I can hear the walls shaking. The wind is super strong. I can hear it whistling as it comes through the cracks of the doors," Hattori told AFP.
Fearful tourists were evacuated from flooded rooms to a sixth floor ballroom, she said.
Images on social media showed the impact of winds that had uprooted trees, swept away vehicles and dislodged roofs, throwing debris everywhere.
Tens of thousands of homes were without power Thursday, the Guam Power Authority said, but noted that a total blackout had been avoided.
"We are working hard to maintain the last remaining customers through the storm, which contributes to quicker recovery after the winds die down later tonight or in the early morning hours," the agency said, according to the Pacific Daily News.
The NWS said Mawar was now a Super Typhoon, and forecasting models suggested it was heading towards Taiwan or the Philippines.
"As sunlight is starting to peek, we are waking up to a rather disturbing scene out there across Guam," one forecaster said during a morning update Thursday.
"We are looking out our door and what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks. It looks like a scene from the movie 'Twister,' with trees just thrashed apart."
The agency said Guam remained under a typhoon warning, with destructive gusts and heavy surf expected.
Ocean conditions are still treacherous, even for large vessels, it said.
"Residents are urged to stay off the roads and remain in safe, hardened shelters" for now, emergency officials warned.
In Washington, the White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the situation.
"The White House is in close contact with the government of Guam and has offered as much support as needed," a spokeswoman said.
About 21,700 US military personnel and their families are based on Guam, which routinely hosts nuclear attack submarines and long-range bombers.
The territory is also home to key electronic listening posts, and the US bases have some of the Pacific region's most significant ammunition and fuel storage facilities.
Lieutenant Commander Katie Koenig, spokesperson for Joint Region Marianas said military aircraft and ships departed before the destructive winds began or were sheltered in hangars, "except for one vessel which remains in port due to an inoperable engine."
Koenig added that all military and civilian personnel were instructed to take shelter.
"Our service members throughout the Marianas routinely exercise natural disaster response and are ready and postured to respond... once the 'all clear' order is given," she said.
Washington (AFP) - Ratings agency Fitch put the United States on notice Wednesday that its perfect credit rating could be jeopardized if the White House and Republican opposition fail to overcome their impasse on raising the nation's borrowing limit, a week before a key deadline.
Fitch placed the country's AAA-ranked credit on "rating watch negative" -- a move it said "reflects increased political partisanship that is hindering reaching a resolution to raise or suspend the debt limit" before June 1.
That is the "X-date" when the US Treasury Department says that -- short of an agreement -- the government will run out of money, triggering a default with likely devastating economic consequences for the United States and potentially worldwide.
"Fitch still expects a resolution to the debt limit before the X-date," Fitch said in a statement. "However, we believe risks have risen that the debt limit will not be raised or suspended before the X-date and consequently that the government could begin to miss payments on some of its obligations."
President Joe Biden's administration said Wednesday that it still sees a path to a deal, but there were few concrete signs that the two sides were finding agreement on how to raise the so-called debt ceiling, authorizing the government to borrow more money and keep paying its bills beyond June 1.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, however, that talks "remain productive."
"There's a path to move forward," she said. "We believe that we can get to a solution here. We can get to a bipartisan, reasonable agreement."
The alternative, Jean-Pierre warned, is "catastrophic impacts in every single part of this country."
"We're talking about millions of jobs lost, devastating retirement accounts, and a recession," she said.
The two sides are divided by fundamentally different visions of how to manage the country's $31 trillion debt.
Biden's Democrats say that Congress needs to approve automatically what's known as a "clean" debt ceiling raise -- that is, to authorize more government borrowing to cover expenses already committed to, but not funded, in the budget. It's essentially an accounting maneuver that Congress performs every year to adjust funding levels.
Republicans, increasingly dominated by a hard right faction loyal to ex-president Donald Trump, have decided to use this generally mundane procedure as leverage to force Biden into accepting severe spending cuts, notably targeting social programs.
Republicans say the cuts are needed to rein in out-of-control government spending. Biden's negotiators say they are ready to discuss taming the budget, but not when Republicans are holding the debt ceiling "hostage."
In the latest negotiating offer, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen proposed to freeze government spending at current levels, something that she said would reduce the deficit by $1 trillion.
"The president's budget that he put forward actually proposes $3 trillion worth of deficit reduction over 10 years," Yellen said at a Wall Street Journal event on Wednesday.
"In this negotiation, the President has already offered changes that would result in an additional trillion dollars of deficit reduction," she added.
Other areas of compromise from the president include proposals to rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds, a person familiar with the talks said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
However, Republicans have ruled out accepting White House plans to further tackle the deficit through tax increases on the most wealthy Americans and corporations.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in Congress, again ruled out passing a "clean" debt ceiling hike, but also said he thought progress would be possible.
"I am not going to give up. We're not going to default. We're going to solve this problem. I will stay with it until we can get it done," he told reporters.
"But let's be honest about this: We have to spend less than we spent last year. It is not my fault that the Democrats cannot give up on their spending."
The Republicans say their spending plans would cut the deficit by $4.8 trillion over a decade. The White House describes their plan as slashing assistance for the poorest while reinforcing tax cuts for the wealthy passed under Trump.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Tuesday said he never linked his work as chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating the Biden family to former President Donald Trump’s rising poll numbers, a day after he said otherwise, The Daily Beast reports.
Huffington Post reports that Comer during an appearance on “Fox & Friends First” Monday was asked by host Ashley Strohmier whether his committee’s probe has “moved this needle with the media?” and he agreed emphatically.
“Absolutely. There’s no question,” Comer replied.
“You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward. And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”
Comer’s statement was likened to Kevin McCarthy’s 2015 remark during the Benghazi probe suggesting the investigation was politically damaging to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a remark that at the time doomed McCarthy’s speakership aspirations.
And according to The Beast’s reporting, it prompted “Comer to attempt some clean-up on Tuesday amid the growing criticism over his own remarks.”
Comer on Tuesday during an appearance on Fox Business Network’s “The Bottom Line” appeared to contradict his previous account.
“Look, when I was referencing poll numbers, it had nothing to do with Donald Trump,” Comer said.
“It had to do with the fact that the American people overwhelmingly believe that public corruption is a problem, and they’re concerned about how Joe Biden’s family got this money from foreign nationals, that’s what I was referencing in the polling, the polling shows the American people are keeping up with our investigation, it has nothing to do with Donald Trump.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis kicked off his presidential campaign formally on Wednesday, in an unconventional way: by hosting a Twitter Spaces event with tech billionaire Elon Musk. But from the start, the announcement was plagued with problems and technical glitches that forced it to start late — and while there were originally some 700,000 people in the space, viewership plunged as it became apparent it wasn't working properly.
The debacle resulted in widespread mockery from people of all political persuasions across Twitter.
"He can't even lead a Twitter Spaces!" laughed attorney Bradley P. Moss. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Florida-based attorney who became famous for dressing up as the Grim Reaper to protest DeSantis' COVID-19 policies, tweeted, "AI Ron is reading a script on Twitter Spaces." And David Frum, a Never Trump conservative who once served as a speechwriter to President George W. Bush, tweeted, "Failure to Launch: The Ron DeSantis Story."
Justin Horwitz linked it to the DeSantis leadership, as well: "Ron DeSantis can’t even successfully announce his candidacy. How do we expect him to successfully run the country?"
"Campaign launches not included in Twitter Blue 🙄" joked reporter Heidi Przybyla.
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan went right to the source: "Congratulations to DeSantis's crack comms team, @BryanDGriffin , @ChristinaPushaw , and @JeremyRedfernFL , for organizing a totally effective and non-humiliating campaign launch for their boss with tech genius @elonmusk . Bravo! Remember, their pitch is 'Trump but competent.' Lol."
Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, also laughed about the state of the event on his War Room podcast, calling it a "clown show." "You got Elon mumbling he’s on the spectrum ... you’ve got DeSantis mumbling, who knows where he is." And far-right activist Laura Loomer joked that the "Twitter space with @elonmusk was titled 'Preparing to Launch.' After Team DeSantis screwed the entire thing up and made people wait over 20 min, DeSantis's Space is already OVER before it ever began. More like FAILURE TO LAUNCH."
IN OTHER NEWS: 'Globes everywhere!': Georgia GOP official pushes Flat Earth conspiracy theory
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), meanwhile, pointed out how few people were even paying attention to the whole spectacle, saying, "We had more people join when I played Among Us," a popular multiplayer video game.
And President Joe Biden himself jumped into the mockery, with his account tweeting a link to his re-election donation page and saying, "This link works."
DeSantis was competitive with Trump nationally and in many states in polls near the end of last year. However, recent polling suggests that DeSantis may be losing steam even as he launches officially, with Trump leading DeSantis by almost 30 points in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate.
In an awkward moment on Wednesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) banged the gavel on the House floor and demanded "decorum." The request led to laughter from her colleagues due to the perceived irony.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was one of them, tweeting, "I haven’t laughed this hard in a while — but Marjorie Taylor Greene just called for 'decorum' on the House Floor."
The video shows that Greene kept banging the gavel, but Democrats kept laughing anyway.
The irony stems from the idea that decorum generally requires propriety and polite behavior, which is the opposite of what many colleagues think of Greene's frequent outbursts on the House floor, especially as they relate to Joe Biden and his family.
"Remember, Greene was the one heckling President Biden during the State of the Union. Democrats laughed at her for good reason," tweeted lawyer Aaron Parnas.
IN OTHER NEWS: Florida library threatened by GOP lawmaker over its 'I read banned books' cards
Democratic commentator Kaivan Shroff also noted: "Greene has been a vocal supporter of the January 6th Capitol terror attack."
You can see the moment in the video below or at the link.
Marjorie Taylor Greene demands "decorum" — and hilarity ensues www.youtube.com
News broke on Monday that special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed the Trump Organization for financial information concerning deals it made with seven foreign countries as part of the investigation into classified documents found in the former president's Mar-a-Lago home.
As the report landed and sparked speculation that he might even be suspected of trying to make money from the documents, the man himself was bragging about his new Saudi-connected golf tournament.
"There is going to be great energy at the LIV Golf Tournament at @TrumpWashingtonDC this weekend," he said on Truth Social. The golf course is actually in Virginia. "Join me in watching incredible players including Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Cam Smith, Sergio Garcia, and so many more."
"The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has spent most of the past five months hard at work trying to link 'the Biden family' (read: relatives of President Biden but not Biden himself) to millions of dollars proffered by foreign business interests before Biden became president," wrote Philip Bump of the Washington Post.
"With the 2024 presidential campaign already at the top of the political conversation, the idea that some revelation might prove to be politically damaging to the incumbent is obviously a central motivation."
He noted that one would think the committee would be interested if a Democratic front-runner was raking in dough from a foreign business linked to a foreign leader. It might be especially concerning if the foreign leader had also been "implicated by U.S. intelligence in the murder of a journalist."
But when it comes to Donald Trump, the House Oversight Committee couldn't possibly care less, Bump said. "But all of that is true of Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, so no hearings should be expected."
The LIV Golf empire is a group of tournaments with "a well-paid coterie of golfers" that is paid by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is run by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It's the same man who also reportedly gave Trump's son-in-law $2 billion.
"Mohammed, you will recall, was identified by U.S. intelligence officials as having approved the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi," wrote Bump.
He cited a federal judge who presided over a lawsuit filed by LIV against the Professional Golfers' Association.
“It is plain that PIF is not a mere investor in LIV,” U.S. District Judge Susan van Keulen wrote. “it is the moving force behind the founding, funding, oversight, and operation of LIV.”
The New York Times also reported that LIV isn’t likely to be a good financial investment for the PIF. But it's making Donald Trump a lot of money. The implication is that the former president is cashing in on what he did for the Saudis while in the White House. Now that the DOJ is investigating the foreign Trump businesses surrounding the documents scandal, a former DOJ official questioned whether the Saudis also scored some government intelligence out of the deal too.
The first LIV tournament was at Trump's New Jersey golf course, where families of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks demanded the event be scrapped. Many of the hijackers were tied back to Saudi Arabia, according to the 9/11 Commission report. When asked about the protests, Trump told the Wall Street Journal: “I don’t know much about the 9/11 families."
But LIV is the only option that Trump has because the PGA reportedly didn't want to be linked to the man being investigated for his alleged role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
"If only there were an institution within the federal government interested in publicly policing sketchy relationships between presidential candidates and foreign entities! Alas, there doesn’t appear to be," Bump complained, implying that the Justice Department isn't interested
Over the years, far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has not only made enemies among Democrats, but also, among fellow Republicans. Paxton's years in Texas' state government have been tumultuous; nonetheless, he was elected to a third term in 2022, defeating Democratic challenger Rochelle Mercedes Garza by around 10 percent.
Paxton's third term is seeing considerable tensions between him and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a conservative Republican.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that on Tuesday, May 23, Phelan announced that the Texas House General Investigating Committee has, for months, been probing "alleged illegal conduct" by Paxton. Conversely, Paxton called for Phelan's resignation after a video emerged of Phelan drunkenly addressing lawmakers.
Phelan has flatly denied Paxton's accusation, attacking it as "a last-ditch effort to save face."
Paxton was under investigation long before Phelan made his May 23 announcement. In 2015, a Texas grand jury indicted Paxton on criminal fraud charges, but his trial was delayed multiple times.
The bitter exchanges between Paxton and Phelan, according to AP reporter Jake Bleiberg, have "jolted" Texas "near the frantic end of a legislative session that has again laid bare the raw divisions between Republicans who control every level of power in the state government."
"At stake for Paxton in the final days of the session is whether lawmakers will approve using $3.3 million in taxpayer dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by the attorney general's accusers," Bleiberg explains. "Paxton, who also separately remains indicted on securities fraud charges from 2015, has denied wrongdoing."
Paxton is controversial for a variety of reasons, including his efforts to overturn the election results in four states that President Joe Biden won in 2020: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Paxton, making false claims of widespread voter fraud, filed a lawsuit in the hope of getting the electoral votes for Biden thrown out in those states and given to former President Donald Trump. But the case was dismissed on December 11, 2020.
Democratic Texas State Rep. Chris Turner told the New York Times that Paxton is "the last person" who should be calling for Phelan or anyone else to resign.
Turner argued, "This is someone who is under multiple indictments, under an FBI investigation, tried to overturn a presidential election. So, Ken Paxton ought to tend to his own affairs."
A CNN profile on what happened to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after he left the Trump White House is painting him as both a Republican God-send and just another grifter.
Meadows has spent the past few years working for a far-right think tank, the Conservative Partnership Institute. Thus far, the only press around the group has come from a Washington Post piece that revealed confusion over the organization's buying up real estate all over Capitol Hill. The group also hosts a kind of social club for Republican lawmakers, Raw Story was told.
CNN reported some new lawmakers were "so taken by Meadows, at one point they considered nominating him for Speaker. Meadows ultimately rejected the suggestion, telling lawmakers he preferred to operate behind the scenes."
Sources have told CNN that, despite not becoming the Speaker, he has been working with many of the right of the Republican party in an effort to pull the strings on the debt ceiling strategy. Democratic strategist Chai Komanduri said Donald Trump is doing the same, thinking if he can sink the economy, he has a better shot of winning in 2024.
The "right flank may try to stand in the way of any concessions made in a compromise with President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats," the CNN report cautioned.
The concern among analysts is that Speaker Kevin Carthy's so-called "right flank" could unseat him if they don't like the deal that he makes with the White House. It incentivizes them instead of a more moderate, bipartisan approach.
Meadows has faded from the public spotlight so much that not even Donald Trump's people have a handle on him – despite him possibly being a central player in the special counsel investigation into Trump's involvement in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
"A source close to Trump’s legal team said Trump’s lawyers have had no contact with Meadows and his team and are in the dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation, fueling speculation about whether Meadows is cooperating with the special counsel’s probe – or if Meadows himself is a target of the investigation," said CNN.
“We’ve all heard the same rumors,” a Trump adviser said. “No one really knows what he’s doing, though.”
Even Meadows' allies say he wants to "help steer the direction of the country," with others saying he's "driven by a desire for power"
“He is all about getting information so he can be seen as important to donors, other members, the media,” a senior GOP source who once worked for a Freedom Caucus member told CNN. “People don’t trust him.”
Another source suggested Meadows might want to work in the White House again, which a source close to Trump "scoffed at."
Back home, the once-beloved Congressman has become something different.
“I used to joke it was Jesus and then Mark Meadows in the 11th. He was just a couple rungs below Jesus in western North Carolina. He would arrive and it was like Elvis,” said a GOP activist. “Now I think he’s just kind of a non-factor if you were to talk to anyone in western North Carolina.”
Meadows was even accused of voter fraud after it was found he was registered to vote in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia (where he lives).
"Public records showed Meadows, a Republican, listed a mobile home in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina, that he did not own as his physical address when he registered to vote on Sept. 19, 2020, while he was still serving as chief of staff," the Associated Press explained.
Trump won the state by just over 1 percent in 2020, and Meadows cast an absentee ballot from there and Attorney General Josh Stein refused to prosecute. Meadows appears to be exclusively living and voting in Virginia now.
With the U.S. careening toward a default crisis that they manufactured, House Republicans are reportedly crafting a major tax cut package that would overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations while blowing a multitrillion-dollar hole in the federal deficit.
The fresh push for tax cuts, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), further shows that "this hostage crisis has never been about deficits for the GOP."
"It has always been about wealth transfer—taking away food and healthcare from the poor and middle class to give away $3 trillion more in tax cuts to their rich friends," Omar, the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, tweeted Tuesday.
Politico reported earlier this week that Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee hope to finish work on their emerging tax legislation by June 16, just over two weeks after the so-called "X-date"—the day on which the Treasury Department expects the federal government to run out of money to cover its obligations unless Congress raises the debt limit or President Joe Biden acts unilaterally.
"Key parts of the [tax cut] package... will likely include a full restoration of research and development deductions, full bonus depreciation, removing caps on business interest expensing, and a doubling of the $1.08 million limitation on the section 179 deduction (which, like bonus depreciation, allows a company to deduct an asset's cost up-front)," Politico noted.
The outlet added that Rep. Vern Buchanan's (R-Fla.) legislation aimed at making the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts for individuals and some businesses permanent "also has a strong likelihood of getting marked up in a broader package." The bill, known as the TCJA Permanency Act, currently has nearly 100 Republican co-sponsors in the House.
Buchanan, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, personally benefited from the 2017 tax law that he's working to extend.
"Republicans are holding our economy hostage because they want to cut programs for working families," Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said Tuesday. "Their next big move? Massive tax cuts for their rich corporate buddies. They may call it fiscal responsibility—I call it extortion."
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated last week that extending the individual provisions of the 2017 tax cuts—which are currently set to expire in 2025—would add $2.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. The original law made the cut to the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% permanent.
"The hypocrisy of Republicans in Washington is truly breathtaking," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a Fox News op-ed on Wednesday. "Over and over again, we hear from the Republican leadership about how deeply concerned they are about the large deficit and national debt that we have. Really?"
"If that's the case," Sanders asked, "why are they pushing for an extension of the Trump tax breaks that disproportionately benefit the wealthy and large corporations and would increase the federal deficit by $3.5 trillion?"
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimated earlier this month that just 1% of the benefits of the TCJA Permanency Act would go to the poorest fifth of Americans.
The richest fifth, by contrast, would receive nearly two-thirds of the tax benefits, ITEP found.
"The average tax cut for the richest 1%," the organization noted, "would be 25 times that of the middle 20% and more than 250 times that of the bottom 20% of Americans."
Republicans are preparing to launch their push for new tax cuts as they continue to hold the U.S. and global economies hostage in pursuit of steep federal spending reductions, all under the guise of lowering the deficit.
"We're not going to raise taxes," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said earlier this week. "It's a spending problem."
But research published in March by the Center for American Progress (CAP) found that the GOP austerity crusade "does not address the true cause of rising debt"—tax cuts.
"Tax cuts initially enacted during Republican trifectas in the past 25 years slashed taxes disproportionately for the wealthy and profitable corporations, severely reducing federal revenues," noted Bobby Kogan, CAP's senior director of federal budget policy. "In fact, relative to earlier projections, spending is down, not up. But revenues are down significantly more."
"If not for the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—as well as the Trump tax cuts—revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely, and the debt ratio (debt as a percentage of the economy) would be declining," Kogan observed. "Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001."
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stood before press cameras on Wednesday to trash President Joe Biden as a socialist for refusing to make massive cuts to spending on things like veteran care and education, and former adviser to Speakers Paul Ryan (R-WI) and John Boehner (R-OH) doesn't see how McCarthy will sell any of the current negotiations to his members.
"It's hard for him to say, here is this deal I got," said Branden Buck on MSNBC. "I don't know exactly what the number is going to be, but it cuts tens of billions of dollars, permitting reform perhaps, working around the edges on work requirements.
"That's about as ambitious as we are looking here. And that's a big departure from what House Republicans are saying McCarthy should hold out for."
According to Economics Professor Jason Furman, the problem isn't just about cutting a few things here and there, the way Republicans are making it sound.
"There will potentially be money added to defense, which means an even bigger cut to non-defense," Furman explained.
"Maybe the Republicans will be disappointed with the top-line spending cuts, but then what will the Democrats think when a bunch of the non-defense cuts are happening, not really to cut the debt but in order to fund extra defense? There's a lot of difficulties on all sides here.
"That's why I think there's only so much the Speaker can reasonably ask for. Of course, there needs to be some form of compromise here. Let's not pretend this is about the debt when you raise defense spending. When you started out saying he wanted to reduce tax enforcement, things like work requirements have little budgetary impact. He should not pretend this is about the debt."
To illustrate that fact, the White House proposed reducing the deficit by $1 trillion over ten years. It comes after Biden's past efforts that cut the deficit by $3 trillion, he said in a speech Sunday. Biden's plan makes cuts across the board and withdraws some of the Republican tax cuts over the past 20 years that added so much to the deficit.
See the conversation below or at the link here.
Republicans want to take from Americans to give to defense spending www.youtube.com
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday enthusiastically repeated praise he received from anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.
Specifically, the former president quoted a statement that Kennedy made when he appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast about Trump's debating prowess.
"President Trump has shown himself to be the most devastating debater probably since Abraham Lincoln in terms of just his capacity to obliterate and dispatch opponents," Kennedy said, in a quote posted on Trump's Truth Social account.
In reality, Trump has not shown himself to be a devastating debater, let alone one on par with one of America's most historically well ranked presidents.
IN OTHER NEWS: 'An active coup!' Marjorie Taylor Greene rants that Biden is trying to take over his own government
Scientific post-debate polls conducting in both 2016 and 2020 generally showed audiences found Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden bested Trump in the first debates they had together.
Trump's first debate performance against Biden was criticized even by some Republicans, as he repeatedly talked over Biden so many times that it prompted Biden to famously say, "Will you shut up, man?"
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused President Joe Biden's government of running an "active coup."
Greene told War Room host Steve Bannon that she suspected a "coup" because the FBI had not charged the president's son, Hunter.
"It's a coup," she asserted. I'm telling you. It's like an active coup, Steve. For people to deny that [is] existing and happening today is pure — just pure idiocy."
"They're running an operation that is outside the norms and outside our Constitution. They are actively protecting Joe Biden. They are actively protecting the regime for political reasons," she added.
Greene said Biden had "weaponized the FBI; they have weaponized the Department of Justice."
"This is the coup that started when President Trump came into office in 2017. It's the same people doing the same damn thing, and they're continuing it today," she remarked.
It wasn't immediately clear why Biden could carry out an "active coup" against his own government.
Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.
In late April, far-right conspiracy theorist Alan Hostetter — who formerly served as police chief of La Habra, California but now works as a yoga instructor — pleaded "not guilty" to federal conspiracy charges he is facing in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors don't believe that Hostetter actually entered the U.S. Capitol Building that day, but allege that he was part of the overall conspiracy to prevent Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory.
Russell Taylor, one of Hostetter's co-defendants in the case, has pled guilty and is looking at four to seven years in federal prison. The other co-defendants, all Southern California residents, are alleged militia members Felipe Antonio Martinez, Erik Scott Warner, Ronald Mele and Derek Kinnison.
While Taylor has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, Hostetter maintains that he did nothing wrong on January 6, 2021 and plans to act as his own attorney in court. Hostetter has been promoting conspiracy theories in his motions. And federal prosecutors, according to the Orange County Register, fear that Hostetter will "make the trial into a circus" and create "the type of sideshow the United States is seeking to prevent."
Hostetter, the Register reports, has waived his right to a trial by jury but plans to plead his case in front of a federal judge.
Prosecutors said of Hostetter, "It is a disorganized and purposeless journey through the history of 20th- and 21st-Century conspiracy theories." A federal judge told Hostetter, "I strongly urge you not to try to represent yourself" in court, but the former La Habra police chief insists on doing it anyway.
La Habra is in northern Orange County south of Los Angeles. These days, California is heavily Democratic, but during the 1970s and 1980s, it was still a red state. And Orange County was known for being a bastion of conservative GOP politics.
Hostetter became La Habra police chief in 2009, but he retired after less than a year because of spinal problems.
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