Justin Klawans

Democrats in New Mexico are calling on the state's Republican Party to distance themselves from a GOP mail advertisement that was condemned by the Democrats are racist.

According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the mail ad was paid for by the New Mexico GOP, and was distributed among nine House districts that are considered up for grabs during the midterms. The New Mexican displayed a picture of the ad, which depicts a stock photo in which a pair of dark hands is cutting the hair of a depressed-looking young boy.

"Your state representative...voted to allow convicted sex offenders to receive professional licenses for activities such as cutting hair or working as a nail technician, leaving unsuspecting women and children vulnerable to predators," the ad says. "Do you want a sex offender cutting your or your child's hair?"...

A GOP Senate candidate who has consistently touted law enforcement and the "Back the Blue" movement was likely involved in an angry altercation with police in 2018, a new report said Friday.

According to a report from The Daily Beast, New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc was likely the person involved in a domestic disturbance with police officers in 2018 that required backup to be sent to his home. According to the dispatch log obtained by the Beast, the incident began when Bolduc's wife Sharon called 911 for a medical emergency for a man in his 50s, possibly Bolduc, and said he was reportedly experiencing chest pains and trouble breathing.

When Stratham Police Department officers arrived at the home of Bolduc - a former Army brigadier general - they requested backup, saying that there was a "verbal domestic incident" at the location. The incident report then goes on to say that someone in front of the home became “aggressive towards the police” when backup arrived, and told officers, “I feel like I’m being interrogated in my own driveway.” The rest of the family was reportedly cooperative with police. ...

Following a Washington Post report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will likely not recommend sex trafficking charges against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one legal mind shared his anger with the course of the investigation, calling it "atrocious prosecutorial practice."

Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and senior legal analyst for CNN, explained the problems with the DOJ's moves on Twitter. "The problem with DOJ’s approach to the Gaetz case is you don’t cooperate with a horrible person like Joel Greenberg *unless and until* you know for sure you can and will rely on his testimony. To flip Greenberg and decide later that he’s unusable is atrocious prosecutorial practice," Honig said.

The person Honig is referring to, Joel Greenberg, was a former tax collector previously associated with Gaetz. He was charged in 2020 and pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a minor, in addition to a host of other charges. ...

One reporter sent out an urgent warning after former President Donald Trump posted what may be his most bizarre, QAnon-related, and conspiracy-laden video yet on his Truth Social platform.

The video was "re-truthed" by Trump on Thursday evening, and as The Daily Beast political reporter Will Sommer noted, the imagery was "filled with overt QAnon memes," and that the former president was really "stepping his QAnon outreach."

Truth Social ...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was asked on Thursday what his thoughts were about the Jan. 6 Committee, but instead of answering the question, he proceeded to insult the person who asked it.

Video posted on Twitter by NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong shows him asking Gingrich, "What do you think about the Jan. 6 committee?" Gingrich at first replied, "I don't," and then turned away from Wong.

Wong tried again, asking the former Republican speaker, "You have no thoughts about the committee itself?" Gingrich then turns to Wong and says, "I think you have a learning disability. The fact is, I've said to you three or four times, I don't talk about it. You don't seem to - try the phrase, 'I don't talk about it.'"...