Mike Gallagher Out!

Republican Mike Gallagher out after Mayorkas vote.

President Joe Biden still has a long way to go and the stakes couldn't be much greater.

On a theme of revenge, Republicans are mounting constant attacks on the embattled president. Some are legitimate reasons to criticize. Others are just noise conjured up by Fox, X, Newsmax, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.

The rest like Rumble, Truth Social and Real America's Voice are just conspiracy theories and grifting at its worst.

Republicans are revolting against each other. Several members are in fear of a primary challenge or a strong Democratic challenger. Many are heading for the exit doors while in the case of former 3rd District of Colorado Republican member Lauren Boebert, she will run in another district.

Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher is retiring from the House. He is angered by the lack of accomplishments and the Republicans refusal to read the U.S. Constitution. He represents the 8th Congressional District which covers the Green Bay metropolitan area.

Gallagher was known for his attack on free speech. During the Iowa Capitol Satanic Holiday display, Gallagher went to Softball Hannity's shitshow on Fox to complain about the Satanic display in Wisconsin. He claims that its was evil for this display to be up and his children would never be allowed to see it.

Republicans are gun ho in trying to impeach Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas over the "border crisis." 

In reality, the border is safe and Republicans proved that by blocking the bipartisan border bill several Senators spent months negotiating. Former president Donald J. Trump claims victory because he can finally use a weapon against Biden. Trump wants to deny Biden a victory and it proved to the country that the ineffectiveness of Republicans is the reason why Anericans distrust their government.

lol pic.twitter.com/2u63WyaAxf

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 26, 2023

None of these Republicans are doctors. Some may have been but in the case of Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), he abused his medical oath by doing harm. We heard about Jackson passing out pills like it was candy. We know he rides like that when he's under the influence of booze.

Gallagher was one of four Republicans who refused to impeach Mayorkas.

The GOP has been looking to oust Mayorkas as a way to punish the Biden administration over its handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. A House impeachment vote Tuesday fell just one vote short. Gallagher was one of three Republicans who opposed impeachment. His fellow Republicans surrounded him on the House floor in an attempt to change his mind, but he refused to change his vote.

Record numbers of people have been arriving at the southern border as they flee countries around the globe. Many claim asylum and end up in U.S. cities that are ill-prepared to provide for them while they await court proceedings. The issue is potent line of attack for Donald Trump as he works toward defeating President Joe Biden in November’s elections.

Gallagher wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published after the vote that impeachment wouldn’t stop migrants from crossing the border and would set a precedent that could be used against future Republican administrations. But the impeachment vote’s failure was a major setback for the GOP. Wisconsin Republicans began mulling this week whether Gallagher should face a primary challenger.

A statement from Congressman Gallagher. pic.twitter.com/93xhZIyVRb

— Rep. Gallagher Press Office (@RepGallagher) February 10, 2024

Gallagher did not mention the impeachment vote in a statement announcing his retirement, saying only that he doesn’t want to grow old in Washington.

“The Framers intended citizens to serve in Congress for a season and then return to their private lives,” Gallagher said. “Electoral politics was never supposed to be a career and, trust me, Congress is no place to grow old. And so, with a heavy heart, I have decided not to run for re-election.”

He told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the backlash over the impeachment vote did not play a role in his decision.

“I feel, honestly, like people get it, and they can accept the fact that they don’t have to agree with you 100%,” he told the newspaper, adding later in the interview: “The news cycle is so short that I just don’t think that stuff lasts.”

Voicemails The Associated Press left at his offices in Washington and Wisconsin on Saturday weren’t immediately returned.

Gallagher, a former Marine who grew up in Green Bay, has represented northeastern Wisconsin in Congress since 2017. He spent last year leading a new House committee dedicated to countering China. During the committee’s first hearing, he framed the competition between the U.S. and China as “an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century.”

Tensions between the two countries have been high for years, with both sides enacting tariffs on imports during Trump’s term as president. China’s opaque response to COVID-19, aggression toward Taiwan and the discovery of a possible spy balloon floating across the U.S. last year have only intensified lawmakers’ intent to do more to block the Chinese government.

Chinese officials have lashed out at the committee, accusing its members of bias and maintaining a Cold War mentality.

Gallagher was one of the highest-profile Republicans considering a run for U.S. Senate this year against incumbent Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin. But he abandoned the idea in June. He said then that he wanted to focus on countering China through the committee and that he planned to run for a fifth term in the House.

Israel Goes South!

Israel is trying to invade the last place where Gazans fled.

The Israeli government is now preparing to strike in the areas where they forced millions of Gazans to flee. This is literally going against the U.S. and U.N.'s warnings against forced displacement.

Saudi Arabia warns that the peace deal between Israel will not go forward if Israel continues to push Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank.

There are airstrikes in Rafah, the last place where Israel demanded Gazans go. Of course, since they cut off internet, water, food, gas, medical supplies and sewage, the many people who have no means of technology are at risk of being killed by these evil people.

Israel is losing the public's trust and the U.S. is waning.

It is rumored that President Joe Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a "fucking bad guy" and has gave Israel an ultimatum to avoid civilian casualties or lose American aid. It is too late for Biden to win back support from Arab Americans.

Biden campaign officials went to Minneapolis, Dearborn, Detroit and Chicago to talk to Arab American leaders only to be shunned by several. They feel that Biden is too cozy with the foreign government of Israel and harboring sentiments post-9/11 towards Muslims.

He is constantly been telling the world what Israel wanted.

"It was the other team."

That will go down in history as the biggest blunders in Biden's outreach to Arab Americans and practicing Muslim Americans.

Israel has destroyed hospitals. They claimed Hamas build tunnels and had weapons placed inside. However, they have not allowed UN workers or reporteurs inside to verify evidence. The American and British media are not allowed to stray outside of the Israel Defence Force. Any reporting must be cleared with Israel before it is shown to the public.

Israel has destroyed schools and refugee centers. Safe zones sponsored by the UN. Israel claimed Hamas were running terror camps and kidnapped Israelis. The U.S., Great Britain, Australia and Canada cut off funding to the UNRWA.

Israel continues to torture Palestinians.

Even though five people (of course being tortured by the Israelis) confessed they're Hamas, the UN workers were fired and the humanitarian aid from world leaders is halted.

The Israelis are blocking aid coming into Gaza. Several of the Israelis are armed and have pointed firearms at relief workers. Israel claims Hamas stole the aid and are living high on the hog.

Rape and torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Animals are being shot by Israeli forces. They are pillaging from homes, businesses and schools. Israel claims that Hamas raper and tortured women. Claims of 67 men were found inside a 13 year old Israeli girl claims some. There is no proof of that and of course, why even bring that to attention?

Israeli hasbara is rampant on X. The troll farms from Israel and Russia are working overtime to ensure that Donald J. Trump wins in 2024. Elon Musk got millions from the Israeli government after he was talked out of providing Starlink for Gazans. Now Musk is deplatforming X users who criticize Israeli propaganda. They are platforming content favorable to Israel.

Biden is being hammered by protesters. Most Democrats and even some Republicans are calling for an immediate ceasefire. And now Biden appeared to ease a split among Democrats over his military support for Israel’s war in Gaza, with lawmakers on Friday praising the order authorizing a swift cutoff of military aid to countries that violate international protections of civilians.

For Biden, the commitment to conditioning U.S. military aid for Israel and other allies and strategic partners will help him shore up support among center-left Senate Democrats for his proposed $95 billion supplemental assistance package, which is aimed primarily at military aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia and for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Tel Aviv still stands. Israel is not defending itself. It is the cause of problems in the Middle East. 

Democratic senators on Friday called Biden’s directive — meant to bring breadth, oversight, deadlines and teeth to efforts to ensure foreign governments don’t use U.S. military aid against civilians — historic.

“This is a sea-change in terms of how you approach U.S. military aid and its impact on civilians,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. She spoke at a Capitol news conference with other Democrats who’d negotiated with the White House for two months on the matter, in an effort led by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

Human rights advocates said the challenge for the new directive would be the same faced by all previous efforts to withhold U.S. weapons and funding from human rights abusers — whether administrations will actually enforce the human rights conditions against strategically important allies and partners.

“The issue was never knowledge” of U.S. military aid being used in violation of international law “so much as enforcement,” said Kenneth Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch and a visiting professor at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

The new order comes in what’s officially known as a presidential memorandum. Those have the force of law, although succeeding presidents can overturn them.

Biden’s order has immediate effect. It gives Secretary of State Antony Blinken 45 days to obtain “credible and reliable written assurances” from foreign recipients of U.S. military aid that are in active conflicts, which includes Israel and Ukraine, that they are using U.S. military assistance in compliance with international humanitarian law and human rights law and other standards.

Foreign governments that fail to provide those assurances on time would have their military aid paused. Administrations also have the option of suspending U.S. military assistance if they deem a foreign government isn’t really complying with humanitarian law and protections, despite claiming it is.

Other requirements include regular reports from the administration on compliance going forward. That includes countries not actively fighting a war.

The supply of air defense systems and some other defensive gear is exempted. While supporters say the stringent language of the order will limit the ability of presidential administrations to evade the spirit of the measure, the order does allow administrations to waive the requirements in “rare and extraordinary circumstances.”

The Biden administration has frustrated some Senate Democrats during Israel’s war in Gaza by declaring a national security emergency to rush military aid to Israel, skirting the usual process of congressional notification.

The administration also has quietly lobbied against moves by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and others to attach conditions to military aid to Israel in the supplemental legislation, with the idea of pressuring Israel to do more to spare Palestinian civilians.

Evil has no remorse.

Nearly 28,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza. That followed the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that killed about 1,200 people in Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has not appeared to have substantially backed off on airstrikes daily claiming civilian lives despite the pressure from the United States, its most important ally and military supporter. The U.S. is also frustrated at Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza. Biden this week said some of his strongest criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war, calling it “over the top.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre underscored Friday that the administration is “not imposing new standards for military aid” with the memorandum. She said it was done in the interest of improving transparency.

She added that Israeli officials were briefed on the memorandum before its release.

“They reiterated their willingness to provide these types of assurances,” Jean-Pierre said.

The U.S. already has laws — including the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Law — meant to bar security assistance to governments that are serial human rights abusers. Those “are honored in the breach,” Roth, the human rights expert, said.

“If the administration is so indifferent to existing law, it’s not clear what difference a new set of reports will make,” Roth said.

The Democratic senators said Friday they would continue working to strengthen the new system laid out in the order.

That includes seeking funding for the additional government oversight and codifying it into legislation so it’s harder for future presidents to trash.

“This is a very big deal,” Van Hollen said. “And it will give President Biden and the United States more tools and more leverage ... to ensure that U.S. military assistance complies with American values and American” standards.

Walmart Tanks Big Snoop And Master P!

Snoop and P sue Walmart after the company hid their products from the public.

When Master P launched his food brands, he meant business. He has partnered with his old friend Big Snoop Dogg to launch a food company. In partnership the two have launched a brand that Walmart has ignored. Now Snoop and P are taking it to federal court and are suing Walmart and Post Hostings.

When P launched his Uncle P's brand in the wake of George Floyd, he said that it is time for Black owned companies to use their skills at the dinner table. He has promoted Louisiana-style foods, seasonings, cereals, rice, pancake mix and pastas at affordable prices. He said every sold product is to help underprivileged children in communities where food deserts are frequent.

Uncle P's brands are sold in Aldi, Walmart, 7-Eleven and Save A Lot.

Now he has invested with Snoop in launching Broadus Foods.

Broadus Foods is more than a family-owned food product company, it’s a movement to making a difference in the lives of families and communities. We stand for integrity, hard work and giving back. We strive to provide foods that are deliciously made with the highest quality. Broadus Foods was founded to continue Momma Snoop’s legacy of her generous love and passion for feeding families in our communities.

 

Broadus Foods is honored to support charitable organizations such as Door of Hope, in addition to feeding families, “Empowering families facing homelessness to transform their lives.” 

 

Broadus Foods Founder Calvin Broadus [Big Snoop Dogg] and CEO Percy Miller [Madter P] are committed to inspire economic empowerment by adding diversity into the grocery stores industry and creating opportunities for minority-owned food products and brands. The culture has crowned the two iconic legends, “Kings of Breakfast Foods” for the world famous Momma Snoop breakfast foods consisting of cereal, oatmeal, grits, pancake mix and syrup.

Benjamin Crump is representing them. The two have possible evidence of sabotage. They accuse Walmart and Post of intentionally leaving the musicians’ cereal off store shelves and hiding it in stockrooms to sabotage it.

The two rejected a proposal by Post Foods to buy the cereal outright, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Dakota County, Minnesota. After they eventually entered into an agreement in 2022, Post did not treat Snoop Cereal "equally as its own brand," even though it sold well when it was placed on store shelves, the suit says.

The rappers began Broadus Foods in 2022 in hope of “inspiring and creating opportunities” for minority-owned food products, according to the suit. A big product under Broadus Foods is Snoop Cereal, sold in flavors that include "Fruity Hoops with Marshmallows” “Frosted Drizzlers” and “Cinnamon Toasteez.”

Snoop Dogg and Master P approached Post Consumer Brands, which the lawsuit calls a “breakfast juggernaut,” seeking a partnership. They strived to get Snoop Cereal in stores where Post cereals were sold, the suit says.

After talks with Post began, the company initially offered to buy Snoop Cereal outright, Snoop Dogg and Master P rejected because it would go against their company’s goal to promote minority-owned businesses, according to the suit. Agreeing to sell the brand would also stop the artists from leaving the company to their families as a legacy business, the suit says.

On Dec. 13, 2022, Broadus Foods did sign a contract with Post to take over all aspects of production of Snoop Cereal, including manufacturing, packaging, retail, sales, distribution and transportation, the suit says.

As part of the agreement, it says, Broadus Foods and Post would split profits, and Post agreed to “treat Snoop Cereal as one of its own brands” and distribute it to “the major retailers including Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Amazon.”

“Because the largest seller of Post’s products is Walmart, Snoop Cereal should have been placed on Walmart’s shelves right next to the dozens of other Post branded” cereals, the suit continues. "Unbeknownst to Broadus Foods, Post was not on board with their goals and dreams and had no intention of treating Snoop Cereal equally as its own brand."

“Essentially, because Snoop Dogg and Master P refused to sell Snoop Cereal in totality, Post entered a false arrangement where they could choke Broadus Foods out of the market, thereby preventing Snoop Cereal from being sold or produced by any competitor," the suit says.

According to the lawsuit, when it was placed on shelves, Snoop Cereal was popular and sold well. However, the products were quickly taken off the shelves, leaving shoppers wondering where to find them, the suit says.

According to the lawsuit, shelf placement is key to selling cereals, and Post and Walmart knew that.

“Walmart and Post agree on the exact aisle, shelf, and position each box will reside on that store floor," according to the suit. "This joint venture results in each store being told exactly where they are to put each cereal brand down to the nearest millimeter.”

The suit gives several examples of frustrated consumers showing up at stores for Snoop Cereal, asking how to find it and being told there was none, only for boxes of it to turn up in stockrooms.

In an example cited in the lawsuit, 200 boxes of Snoop Cereal that had been at a Walmart in New Berlin, Wisconsin, for months were never placed in the cereal aisle.

“In November and December 2023, Walmart stores consistently showed that they did not have Snoop Cereal in stock and online showed that it could not be purchased,” according to the suit. “The Walmart store managers told customers that they did not have any Snoop Cereal in their store.”

Walmart is responsible for coding each box to where it will be placed on shelves, the lawsuit says. Walmart can also code cereal by marking boxes “no location,” which means it will remain in the stockroom. After they sit in the stockroom for months, boxes are thrown out or sold at significant discounts, the suit alleges.

Some of the claims in the lawsuit include breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentation, fraud and collusion and conspiracy.

Post Consumer Brands did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

However, in a statement to NBC Los Angeles, it said it "was excited to partner with Broadus Foods and we made substantial investments in the business. We were equally disappointed that consumer demand did not meet expectations.”

In its own statement, Walmart said that it values its relationships with suppliers and that "many factors," including consumer demand and seasonality, affect the sales of any given product. "We will respond as appropriate with the Court once we are served with the complaint," the company said.

At a media briefing Tuesday announcing the lawsuit, Master P said the suit "is about minority-owned companies getting a fair share.”

Snoop Dogg said, “We ain’t build this brand to sell it."

The rappers are being represented by high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump. They are seeking a jury trial, damages exceeding $50,000, covering the cost of the lawsuit, attorneys’ fees and “further relief determined by the Court.”

Snoop signed to No Limit Records shortly after he ended his contract with Death Row. He had three albums under the label. Snoop is the founder of Doggystyle Records and CEO of Death Row Records. 

Snoop has hinted a joint album with Dr. Dre under Aftermath and Death Row.

By the way, his daughter is recovering from a nearly fatal stroke. Cori Broadus had a stroke in January and almost died. She ended up taking care of herself by losing 40 lbs and devoting her life to addressing Black women health.

Ineffective Republicans Can't Govern!

Insufferable Republican Claudia Tenney of New York wants Merrick Garland to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden.

The Republicans are so ineffective at doing their jobs. I am so tired of them and their obstruction to make government work. When solutions are introduced, they reject it.

Even when the Democrats are doing things in "good faith," the Republicans often question the legitimacy, deny the facts or out right call for more investigations to resolved issues.

So going into the 2024 Presidential Elections, Republicans are going on the possibility of a rematch between Donald J. Trump and President Joe Biden, the belief that MAGA is great, immigration, crime, abortion, transgender rights, fully supporting Israel, rejecting Ukraine, investigating Hunter Biden, rehashing Hillary Clinton conspiracies, punishing media figures, punishing social media not friendly to Republicans, Tara Reade, Biden's age and his health.

Republicans vow to impeach Biden for high crimes or misdemeanors despite having absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing.

Republicans want to defeat him at the ballot box but through voter intimidation, gerrymandering and rejecting electors if the swing state favors Biden.

They will impose stricter laws to making voting harder for people of color.

Now many Republicans are invoking the 25th Amendment in the aftermath of Robert Hur's special counsel report and the declining of indicting the president for having classified documents inside his Delaware home.

You know you're an ineffective lawmaker when you're appearing on Fox and Newsmax?

Because these two networks relish in chaos and total destruction of Democrats and progressive policies.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) was elected once again. She served her first term in 2017 when MAGA swept the House. She ended up defeated after voters rejected it. I mean she is a worthless member. Too extreme for New York.

They elected a Democrat Anthony Brindisi who was a centrist. He was defeated by the New York Supreme Court when they ruled a ballot count favoring Tenney despite controversial errors in Republicans precincts.

Tenney won and has served her terms in the 22nd and 24th district. She should be on the Democrats top list of candidates to defeat. However, it will take a united front.

Republicans turn up the heat on Biden by playing armchair doctors.

Democrats are struggling to gaining footing because the party aligns itself with the entities the Republicans embrace. 

I said Israel is the red line for me. I am disappointed with Biden and Democrats continuing their support for Israel. I would expect Republicans to embrace Israel with an iron grip, but Democrats are the ones who claim democracy and all that crap.

Tenney is not a doctor. She is a D-list lawyer who became a state assemblywoman and then a worthless U.S. Representative. She is a staunch supporter of Trump and his bullshit. 

One of the many lawmakers who rejected the bipartisan border proposal by the Senate.

Five months down the drain because the Republicans claim it was "rushed" and they want to deny Biden a victory.

Tenney is calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Joe Biden from office after special counsel Robert Hur’s report said that while the president should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified documents, he does suffer from a poor memory.

In a letter to Garland Thursday, Tenney expressed her “grave concerns” about Hur’s findings. She said that Hur’s reasons for not bringing charges against Biden, even though the president “knowingly and willfully removed, mishandled, and disclosed classified documents” over a period of decades, were “alarming.”

Hur said the president’s practices had presented “serious risks to national security,” and described in his report several instances of the president suffering from memory loss. He added that part of the reason he didn’t pursue charges against Biden was because the president could portray himself as an “elderly man with poor memory” who would be sympathetic to a jury.

Tenney criticized that reasoning in her letter to Garland. 

“We don’t prosecute or decline to prosecute people based on their personalities, or on the public’s anticipated perception of them,” Tenney wrote. “If Special Counsel finds that the evidence forms a reasonable basis to bring charges, he must do so.”

Tenney compared Hur's decision in his investigation of Biden to special counsel Jack Smith's bringing charges against former President Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The Department of Justice “cannot ethically bring charges” against Trump “because he has mental acuity and a forceful personality” while declining to bring charges against Biden because of his “cognitive decline,” Tenney argued.

Trump, who faces several charges, including the willful retention of national defense information, false statements and representations, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and corruptly concealing a document, has pleaded not guilty in that case.

“President Biden needs to be charged, or he needs to be removed. There is no middle ground,” Tenney wrote. She added that it was “incumbent” upon Garland to begin proceedings to remove the Biden using the 25th Amendment. 

The amendment, ratified after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, provides the procedure for replacing the president in the event of death, removal, resignation or incapacitation. One of its sections provides the vice president and majority of either the Cabinet “or such other body as Congress may by law provide” with a mechanism to transfer power from the president.

Biden responded forcefully to Hur’s report Thursday, asking “How in the hell dare he raise that?” in response to Hur describing an instance in which Biden couldn’t remember when his son Beau had died.

The president said that the report had cleared him of wrongdoing, adding, “My memory is fine.”

The 25th Amendment was seriously talked about during Donald J. Trump's final weeks as President of the United States. You know the day when members of Congress (not Tenney) were in fear of their lives after a mob of Trump's supporters tried to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results through its certification. They violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. One of the most infamous events in modern U.S. history. Trump was impeached for that. He faces five criminal charges for this. Senior Trump officials wanted former vice president Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Competitive Senate Race In Maryland!

Republicans are lining up Larry Hogan for the senate.

Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan announce he will run for the open U.S. Senate being vacated by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD). Hogan's announcement now puts Maryland in the competitive category.

Although I still see it as a Safe Democrats seat, now I will place it in Likely Democrat position.

His competitors Rep. David Trone (D-MD) and Angela Alsobrooks will be on the defensive. 

Hogan was a centrist and a critic of Donald J. Trump. He was hinting a run for president but saw the writing on the wall. Also he was a part of that shadow group, No Labels.

Senate Republicans are excited that Hogan entered the race.

Hogan won two terms in a Democratic stronghold. 

I am running for the United States Senate – not to serve one party – but to stand up to both parties, fight for Maryland, and fix our nation's broken politics. It’s what I did as Maryland’s governor, and it’s exactly how I'll serve Maryland in the Senate. Let’s get back to work. pic.twitter.com/d0TuZchAtN

— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) February 9, 2024

Hogan announced his plans in a video posted to social media Friday, hours before the filing deadline in the race.

Evoking his father's decision as a Republican congressman to back the impeachment of then-Republican President Richard Nixon, Hogan lamented the lack of "leadership" and "willingness to put country over party." And he leaned on his time as governor to make his pitch to voters in a blue state where he's had electoral success.

"My fellow Marylanders, you know me. For eight years we proved that the toxic politics that divide our nation need not divide our state," Hogan said.

"One party alone can't fix it," he continued. "We desperately need leaders willing to stand up to both parties, leaders who appreciate that not one of us have all the answers or all the power."

Hogan immediately becomes the front-runner for his party's nomination, as possibly the only Republican in the state who could make the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin competitive.

While Democratic Gov. Wes Moore won his election in 2022 with more than 64% of the vote, he did so against a candidate from the party's right flank. Hogan won two terms in the blue state, including a 12-point win in 2018, two years after Democrat Hillary Clinton won the state at the presidential level by almost 27 points.

But it will still be an uphill climb for the Republican, and there's no shortage of prominent Democrats running for the seat.

Rep. David Trone (D-MD) has spent more than $19 million on ads so far in the race as he looks for a promotion to the upper chamber. He's touting the endorsements of dozens of his House colleagues, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Trone is running against Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, whose campaign has struggled in the early months of the primary, though she has earned the endorsements of Moore; state Senate President Bill Ferguson; state Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones; and Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

Trone, Alsobrooks and the Democratic Senate campaign arm all put out statements framing the threat of a Republican takeover of the seat as a step closer to national restrictions on abortion rights.

They smell blood in the water.

Democratic lawmakers overrode a 2022 Hogan veto of legislation expanding who could perform abortions, and he told the Washington Examiner in 2023 that "I am for the states' rights and ability to have reasonable restrictions on abortion," but added that he supports exceptions on abortion restrictions.

Shortly after the news broke, Van Hollen told reporters that Democrats shouldn't take Hogan's bid lightly, but that he remains "confident that the Democratic nominee will prevail."

But even if Hogan faces tough odds in flipping the Senate seat, his profile and political strength could at the very least force Democrats to pay attention to a race they were hoping to ignore, particularly as they face a difficult Senate map that has them on the defensive.

Hogan's electoral success in Maryland is unique for a Republican. In 2018 he became the first GOP governor in 64 years to win a second term. He did so by presenting himself as a more centrist Republican resistant to Trump’s rightward pull on the party.

In 2016, Hogan wrote in his father — a former Maryland congressman who was among the first Republicans to call for Nixon's impeachment during Watergate — when casting a vote for president. In 2020, Hogan said he voted for Ronald Reagan.

Until recently, Hogan had a leadership role with No Labels, the group interested in pushing a bipartisan, third-party presidential ticket in 2024, prompting speculation about his own political plans. He then endorsed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley over Trump for this year’s GOP presidential nomination.

In an interview last month with NBC News, Hogan said he was concerned about the future of the party if Trump won the nomination and another term in the White House. He said he was pondering his own role in the party and acknowledged that independent-minded, anti-Trump Republicans like him could be left without a political home if Haley falls short of denying the former president the nomination. 

“That’s the million-dollar question that I’m not sure I have the answer to,” Hogan said then. “A lot of people are trying to figure that out. It’s a long ways to figuring out who the nominee will be and a long ways until November.”

Seven other Republicans have filed to run for Senate in Maryland. One of them, retired Brig. Gen. John Teichert, responded to Hogan's candidacy with a statement emphasizing how much work he's already put into the race.

"Since I announced my campaign in October, I have run on a motto of leadership, not politics, and that message has resonated with Marylanders as I’ve crisscrossed the state during these last four months," Teichert said. "We’ve formed coalitions, received endorsements, captivated hearts and minds, and are still gaining momentum every single day. Marylanders deserve to have a choice and I welcome anyone to the race who wants to offer them one."

Biden Won't Face Charges For Classified Documents! Junk Food Media Questions Age And Mental Fitness!

Dark Brandon unleashed.

President Joe Biden and former president Donald J. Trump are old. I get it, you are not too excited about the potential rematch between the two. I get it.

I am disappointed that Biden continues to aid Israel in their illegal war crimes.

I am disappointed that Congress can't function because of a handful of members who refuse to compromise or even do their jobs they swore an oath to do.

I am disappointed that the Supreme Court members who are appointed by Republicans refuse to read the Constitution and are willing to undo democracy.

But when it comes to the questions from several of the White House press pool, I would start removing their special passes. 

Biden isn't Trump. He wouldn't walk away from a stupid question or even a tough question. Trust me, Biden doesn't do many interviews with Fox but he certainly takes a lot of questions from their minions.

Republicans quark that Biden rarely hold press conferences. He hardly does sit down interviews. Every gaffe is considered a sign of failing memory says the arm chair doctors.

The arm chair doctors believe Biden have cognitive disorder. Arm chair doctors believe he has dementia. Of course, none of these folks are doctors and none of them may survive the age Biden is.

Rush Limbaugh is dead. Think about that!

He died three years ago on Feb. 17, 2021. 

I actually smiled knowing Limbaugh's last days were knowing that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were in charge and not Trump or Mike Pence.

We lost Joe Madison this month. A very influential Black radio host who motivated Black listeners to the polls. Now it makes me very nervous about the turnout knowing that Black men are swing towards Trump. You got Black entertainers embracing MAGA.

More on that later.

A Republican special prosecutor declined to charge President Joe Biden with criminal charges involving his mishandling of classified documents. Of course, Trump and Republicans are outraged. But in the special counsel report, several details released has the president angry and Republicans demanding the 25th Amendment is invoked.

Robert Hur allegedly inserted opinion and conspiracy into his report.

Robert Hur, a former Trump appointed U.S. Attorney was hired by Merrick Garland to investigate the Biden classified documents. Biden wanted to give a non partisan investigation into his actions. Boy it turned out to be a huge mistake.

Biden should have ridden himself of all of Trump's cronies: including Christopher Wray, the current FBI director.

A special counsel report released Thursday found evidence that President Joe Biden willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen, including about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, but concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.

The report from special counsel Robert Hur resolves a criminal investigation that had shadowed Biden’s presidency for the last year. But its bitingly critical assessment of his handling of sensitive government records and unflattering characterizations of his memory will spark fresh questions about his competency and age that cut at voters’ most deep-seated concerns about his candidacy for re-election.

In remarks at the White House Thursday evening, Biden denied that he improperly shared classified information and angrily lashed out at Hur for questioning his mental acuity, particularly his recollection of the timing of his late son Beau’s death from cancer.

The searing findings will almost certainly blunt his efforts to draw contrast with Donald Trump, Biden’s likely opponent in November’s presidential election, over a criminal indictment charging the former president with illegally hoarding classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and refusing to return them to the government. Despite abundant differences between the cases, Trump immediately seized on the special counsel report to portray himself as a victim of a “two-tiered system of justice.”

Yet even as Hur found evidence that Biden willfully held onto and shared with a ghostwriter highly classified information, the special counsel devoted much of his report to explaining why he did not believe the evidence met the standard for criminal charges, including a high probability that the Justice Department would not be able to prove Biden’s intent beyond a reasonable doubt, citing among other things an advanced age that they said made him forgetful and the possibility of “innocent explanations” for the records that they could not refute.

“I did not share classified information,” Biden insisted. “I did not share it with my ghostwriter.” He added he wasn’t aware how the boxes containing classified documents ended up in his garage.

And in response to Hur’s portrayal of him, Biden insisted to reporters that “My memory is fine,” and said he believes he remains the most qualified person to serve as president.

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden asked, about Hur’s comments regarding his son’s death, saying he didn’t believe it was any of Hur’s business.

When asked about the report earlier Thursday in a private moment with a handful of House Democrats ahead of his speech at their suburban Virginia retreat, Biden responded angrily, according to two people familiar with his comments, saying, “You think I would f—— forget the day my son died?” The people did not want to address the matter publicly and spoke of condition of anonymity.

Biden pointedly noted that he had sat for five hours of in-person interviews in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October attack on Israel, when “I was in the middle of handling an international crisis.”

“I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed,” Biden said.

The investigation into Biden is separate from special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiry into the handling of classified documents by Trump after Trump left the White House. Smith’s team has charged Trump with illegally retaining top secret records at his Mar-a-Lago home and then obstructing government efforts to get them back. Trump has said he did nothing wrong.

Hur, in his report, said there were “several material distinctions” between the Trump and Biden cases, noting that Trump refused to return classified documents to the government and allegedly obstructed the investigation, while Biden willfully handed them over.

Hur, a former U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration, was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland as special counsel in January 2023 following an initial discovery by Biden staff of classified records in Washington office space. Subsequent property searches by the FBI, all coordinated voluntarily by Biden staff, that turned up additional sensitive documents from his time as vice president and senator.

Hur’s report said many of the documents recovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, in parts of Biden’s Delaware home and in his Senate papers at the University of Delaware were retained by “mistake.”

Peter Doocy, Fox senior White House correspondent is a controversial figure.

Biden could not have been prosecuted as a sitting president, but Hur’s report states that he would not recommend charges against Biden regardless.

“We would reach the same conclusion even if Department of Justice policy did not foreclose criminal charges against a sitting president,” the report said.

But investigators did find evidence of willful retention and disclosure of a subset of records found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware house, including in a garage, office and basement den. The files pertain to a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama administration that Biden had vigorously opposed. He kept records that documented his position, including a classified letter to Obama during the 2009 Thanksgiving holiday.

Documents found in a box in Biden’s Delaware garage have classification markings up to the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information Level and “other materials of great significance to him and that he appears to have personally used and accessed.” Hur, though, wrote that there was a ”shortage of evidence” to prove that Biden placed the documents in the box and knew they were there.

Some of the classified information related to Afghanistan was shared with a ghostwriter with whom he published memoirs in 2007 and 2017. As part of the probe, investigators reviewed a recording of a February 2017 conversation between Biden and his ghostwriter in which Biden can be heard saying that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.”

Prosecutors believe Biden’s comment, made at a time he was renting a home in Virginia, referred to the same documents FBI agents later found in his Delaware house. Though Biden sometimes skipped over presumptively classified material while reading notebook entries to his ghostwriter, the report says, at other times he read aloud classified entries “verbatim.”

The report said there was some evidence to suggest that Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office, citing his deep familiarity “with the measures taken to safeguard classified information and the need for those measures to prevent harm to national security.” Yet, prosecutors say, he kept notebooks containing classified information in unlocked drawers at home.

“He had strong motivations to do so and to ignore the rules for properly handing the classified information in his notebooks,” the report said. “He consulted the notebooks liberally during hours of discussions with his ghostwriter and viewed them as highly private and valued possessions with which he was unwilling to part.”

While the report removes legal jeopardy for the president, it is nonetheless an embarrassment for Biden, who placed competency and experience at the core of his rationale to voters to send him to the Oval Office. It says that Biden was known to remove and keep classified material from his briefing books for future use and that his staff struggled and sometimes failed to get those records back.

Even so, Hur took pains to note the multiple reasons why prosecutors did not believe they could prove a criminal case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Those include Biden’s “limited memory” both during his 2017 recorded conversations with the ghostwriter and in an interview with investigators last year in which, prosecutors say, he could not immediately remember the years in which he served as vice president. Hur said it was possible Biden could have found those records at his Virginia home in 2017 and then forgotten about them soon after.

“Given Mr. Biden’s limited precision and recall during his interviews with his ghostwriter and with our office, jurors may hesitate to place too much evidentiary weight on a single eight-word utterance to his ghostwriter about finding classified documents in Virginia, in the absence of other, more direct evidence,” the report says

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” investigators wrote.

In addition, prosecutors say, Biden could have plausibly believed that the notebooks were his personal property and belonged to him, even if they contained classified information.

In an interview with prosecutors, the report said, Biden was emphatic with investigators that the notebooks were “my property” and that “every president before me has done the exact same thing.”

Special counsels are required under Justice Department regulations to submit confidential reports to the attorney general at the conclusion of their work. Such reports are then typically made public. The dual appointments in the Biden and Trump cases were seen as a way to insulate the Justice Department from claims of bias and conflict by placing the probes in the hands of specially named prosecutors.

Garland has worked assiduously to challenge Republican claims of a politicized Justice Department. He has named special counsels to investigate not only the president but also his son, Hunter, in a separate tax-and-gun prosecution that has resulted in criminal charges.

But in this case, Biden’s personal and White House lawyers strongly objected to the characterizations of Biden in the report and to the fact that so much derogatory information was released about an uncharged subject like the president.

Biden’s personal attorney Bob Bauer accused the special counsel of violating “well-established’ norms and “trashing” the president.

“The special counsel could not refrain from investigative excess, perhaps unsurprising given the intense pressures of the current political environment. Whatever the impact of those pressures on the final report, it flouts department regulations and norms,” he said in a statement.

But a public outcome was basically sealed once Garland appointed a special counsel.

Regulations require special counsels to produce confidential reports to the attorney general at the conclusion of their work. Those documents are then generally made public, even if they contain unflattering assessments of people not criminally charged.

They Still Haven't Learned Their Lesson!

Who took out the trash?

Smartmatic is suing Fox for $2 billion for defamation and loss of revenue. The case is now on and the network must be present when evidence is revealed.

Fox ended up cutting Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Dan Bongino, Geraldo Rivera and several producers lose. They forced Rupert Murdoch into retirement. Lachlan Murdoch, Suzanne Scott and Jay Wallace were forced to take a paycut. 

Laura Ingraham was demoted. 

Only one member survived the cut. 

They are still allowing the most annoying and most horrible television host to remain on the network. If President Joe Biden wins reelection, I really hope they end up cutting him lose.

Sean "Softball" Hannity been with the network since 1996. He got his humble beginnings when he hosted a lopsided debate show called Hannity & Colmes with moderate comedian Alan Colmes. Colmes left the program and has since passed away in 2017.

"Softball" Hannity hosts his show Hannity. Since 2009, the show has been an absolute trainwreck. 

Turns out this “illegal” “migrant” that Hannity showed being attacked and apprehended by Curtis Sliwa’s vigilantes was just a non-white American speaking Spanish. https://t.co/xqUjXFEOFJ https://t.co/Z1B8D8fBqD

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) February 8, 2024

“The illegals think they own this street!” The “migrant” roughed up and taken down by the Guardian Angels live on Fox News is actually a New Yorker who lives in the Bronx. (Video: Fox News) pic.twitter.com/uwRs1qTvVy

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) February 8, 2024

JUST IN: Police say the "migrant" that Sean Hannity and his dumb Curtis Sliwa’s Guardian Angels clowns roughed up during a live interview on Fox News was not actually a migrant. pic.twitter.com/8RzixWsTiR

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) February 8, 2024

Republicans sank the bipartisan bill to handle the "border crisis" and yet, "Softball" Hannity continues to use the Biden off ramp.

Texas governor Greg Abbott keeps sending migrants into New York City angering embattled mayor Eric Adams and New York governor Kathy Hochul.

"Softball" Hannity said he moved to West Palm Beach, Florida with his girl, fellow Fox host Ainsley Earhardt. He claimed to left his Long Neck, New York mansion for his Florida home.

He is only two miles from Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald J. Trump's residence.

Did you know that Trump and "Softball" Hannity lived in Democratic districts?

Before George Santos was elected and booted, Democrat Tom Suozzi held it. He is trying to reclaim it in a competitive special election. Now the softball and Trump live in the district occupied by Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL).

Softball Hannity is the most annoying media personality on the planet. He will be forever tagged as the worst in the junk food media.

He hosts an extremist group and they roughed up a person.

the Guardian Angels roughed up a man during a live interview on Fox News Tuesday night, then misidentified him as a “migrant” in a primetime segment meant to highlight disorder and crime caused by new arrivals to New York City.

The bizarre altercation played out as Curtis Sliwa, founder of the anti-crime patrol group, was speaking to Softball Hannity from Times Square, flanked by volunteers in their signature red berets and bomber jackets.

As some Guardian Angels began leaving Sliwa’s side to attend to an off-screen disturbance, the camera panned to show them confronting an unidentified man, pushing him to the sidewalk and placing him in a headlock.

“In fact, our guys have just taken down one of the migrant guys on the corner of 42nd and 7th where all of this has taken place,” Sliwa told Hannity. Throwing his hands in the air, he added: “They’ve taken over!”

The man is not a migrant, but a New Yorker from the Bronx, police said Wednesday afternoon. Though Sliwa claimed the man had been caught shoplifting, police provided no evidence to support the allegation.

According to a New York Police Department spokesperson, officers arrived to find a man “detained by bystanders” after he allegedly tried to disrupt a live interview. Police said the man was issued a disorderly conduct summons because he was acting in a loud and threatening manner on a public sidewalk.

The spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether any members of the Guardian Angels were under investigation for their role in the altercation.

The incident came after a brawl in Times Square between police and a group of migrants generated waves of backlash against the city’s asylum seekers. Some advocates for immigrants have blamed local officials and the police department for stoking fears of a “migrant crime wave,” even as the city’s crime rate remains largely unchanged since the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sliwa said he had believed the man was a migrant because he was “speaking Spanish” and because other Guardian Angels had encountered him with other Spanish speakers on previous patrols.

“He was put down so he wouldn’t hurt himself or anyone else,” Sliwa said.

The Guardian Angels have been a fixture in New York since 1979 when Sliwa founded them to patrol the streets and subways during the city’s high-crime days. They have drawn criticism in the past, including allegations of targeting people of color. Sliwa also admitted years ago that he had fabricated some of the group’s early exploits for publicity.

City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents the area around Times Square, said the group should not be detaining people without legal authority.

“Vigilantism is not the answer,” Bottcher said. “When civilians take justice into their own hands it can escalate conflicts and lead to even more dangerous situations putting everyone at risk.”

In May, a U.S. Marine veteran riding the subway placed a fellow passenger in a chokehold to stop him from yelling at people on the train. The subdued man, former subway performer Jordan Neely, died. The ex-Marine, Daniel Penny, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.

Marianne Williamson Out!

Marianne couldn't cut it.

The self help guru and activist Marianne Williamson has suspended her long shot bid for president.

After disappointing losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, Williamson decided to end the bid.

Now the only candidate left is the insufferable Dean Phillips.

He vows to continue on despite the Democrats ignoring his bid and want him to just drop out.

The 71-year-old onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey contemplated suspending her campaign last month after winning just 5,000 votes in New Hampshire’s primary, writing that she “had to decide whether now is the time for a dignified exit or continue on our campaign journey.”

Williamson ultimately opted to continue on for two more primaries, but won just 2% of the vote in South Carolina and about 3% in Nevada.

“I hope future candidates will take what works for them, drinking from the well of information we prepared,” Williamson wrote in announcing the end of her bid. “My team and I brought to the table some great ideas, and I will take pleasure when I see them live on in campaigns and candidates yet to be created.”

Biden is now more firmly in command of the Democratic primary. That’s little surprise given that he’s a sitting president, but it also defies years of low job approval ratings for Biden and polls showing that most Americans — even a majority of Democrats – don’t want him to run again.

Williamson first ran for president in 2020 and made national headlines by calling for a “ moral uprising ” against then-President Donald Trump while proposing the creation of the Department of Peace. She also argued that the federal government should pay large financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.

The DNC isn’t holding primary debates, and Biden’s challengers’ names may not appear on the Democratic primary ballots in some major states.

A Texas native who now lives in Beverly Hills, California, Williamson is the author of more than a dozen books and ran an unsuccessful independent congressional campaign in California in 2014. She ended her 2020 presidential run shortly before the leadoff Iowa caucuses, announcing that she didn’t want to take progressive support from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who was ultimately the last candidate to drop out before Biden locked up the nomination.

In exiting this cycle’s race she wrote Wednesday that “while we did not succeed at running a winning political campaign, I know in my heart that we impacted the political ethers.”

“As with every other aspect of my career over the last forty years, I know how ideas float through the air forming ever new designs,” Williamson said in an email to supporters announcing that she was no longer running. “I will see and hear things in different situations and through different voices, and I will smile a small internal smile knowing in my heart where that came from.”

They Can't Govern!

The morons can't even pass a bill sponsored by their own.

So the Republicans in the Senate blocked a "mind you" a bipartisan bill that gave Republicans what they wanted when it came to solving the border "crisis."

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) spent five months working on this bill. They clearly put out 370 pages of legislation and solutions. Some of the solutions were really fucked up ideas, but it was what the Republicans wanted.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) were on board with it.

But it was the minority of the Republican in the Senate. They complained about President Joe Biden doing nothing on the border. The White House said they will do something if Congress passed a bill and he would sign it into law.

Well Donald J. Trump said don't give Biden a win on the issue he wanted. So Republican members of the Senate and House decided to hold a firm no. 

So basically the border is safe, the crisis is manufactured and Republicans can't govern, period.

After GOP senators scuttled months of negotiations with Democrats on legislation intended to cut back record numbers of illegal border crossings, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to push ahead to a crucial test vote on a $95 billion package for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies — a modified package with the border portion stripped out.

But a deeply divided Republican conference was scrambling to find support for the wartime funding, even though it has been a top priority for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. It was the latest sign of the longtime Republican leader’s slipping control over his conference and underscored how the traditional GOP tenet of robust foreign involvement is giving way to Donald Trump’s “America First” nationalism. At stake is the future of Ukraine’s defense against Russia.

Republicans planned to meet in the morning to plot a path forward.

James Lankford and Kyrsten Sinema walked a mile to disaster.

Some GOP senators have grown skeptical of sending money to Ukraine in its war with Russia, but Schumer warned earlier Wednesday that “history will cast a permanent and shameful shadow” on those who attempt to block it.

“Will the Senate stand up to brutish thugs like Vladimir Putin and reassure our friends abroad that America will never abandon them in the hour of need?” Schumer asked as he opened the Senate.

The roughly $60 billion in Ukraine aid has been stalled in Congress for months because of growing opposition from hardline conservatives in the House and Senate who criticize it as wasteful and demand an exit strategy for the war.

“We still need to secure America’s borders before sending another dime overseas,” Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wrote in a post on X.

The impasse means that the U.S. has halted arms shipments to Kyiv at a crucial point in the nearly two-year-old conflict, leaving Ukrainian soldiers without ample ammunition and missiles as Russian President Putin has mounted relentless attacks.

Ukraine’s cause still enjoys support from many Senate Republicans, including McConnell, but the question vexing lawmakers has always been how to craft a package that could clear the Republican-controlled House.

Josh Hawley, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz have no legislative accomplishments. They are primarily the reasons for nothing getting done.

A pairing of border policies and aid for allies — first proposed by Republicans — was intended to help squeeze the package through the House, where archconservatives hold control. But GOP senators — some within minutes of the bill’s release Sunday — rejected the compromise as election-year politics set in.

Many Republicans said the compromise wasn’t enough and they would rather allow the issue be decided in the presidential election. Supporters of the bill insisted it represented the most comprehensive bipartisan border proposal in years and included many Republican priorities.

The vote failed 49-50 — far short of the 60 ayes needed to take up the bill — with four Republicans voting to move forward with the legislation and six Democrats, some of whom said the border compromise went too far, voting against it.

The bipartisan group of senators who negotiated the compromise for the last four months said it was a missed opportunity to try to make some progress on one of the most intractable issues in American politics.

In a speech on the Senate floor just before the vote, Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who crafted the proposal, said it was a chance for the Senate to decide “if we’re going to do nothing, or something.”

“It’s an issue that’s bedeviled, quite frankly, this body for decades,” Lankford said. “It’s been three decades since we’ve passed anything into law to be able to change border security.”

Ineffective House members. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Kelly Armstrong and House Speaker Mike Johnson. 

Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona blamed Republicans for not giving the bill a chance.

“Finally, it seemed, we had the opportunity to solve the nightmare my state has lived for over 40 years,” she said, scolding Republicans for using the border for “campaign photo ops” but rejecting the chance to enact law.

“Turns out they want all talk and no action,” she said. “It turns out border security is not a risk to our national security. It’s just a talking point for the election.”

The White House said President Joe Biden believes there should be new border policy but would also support moving the aid for Ukraine and Israel alone, as he has from the start.

“We support this bill which would protect America’s national security interests by stopping Putin’s onslaught in Ukraine before he turns to other countries, helping Israel defend itself against Hamas terrorists and delivering life-saving humanitarian aid to innocent Palestinian civilians,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates.

The standalone $95 billion package would invest in domestic defense manufacturing, send funding to allies in Asia, and provide $10 billion for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza and other places.

The revamped package includes legislation to authorize sanctions and anti-money laundering tools against criminal enterprises that traffic fentanyl into the U.S. A separate section of the compromise border legislation that would have provided a long-awaited pathway to residency for tens of thousands of Afghan refugees was dropped in the slimmed-down bill.

Still, it was not clear whether the new plan, even if it passed the Senate, would gain support from House Speaker Mike Johnson. House Republicans are still insisting on a border plan, even though they rejected the deal negotiated in the Senate as insufficient.

“We’ll see what the Senate does,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday morning. “We’re going to allow the process to play out.”

Some were skeptical that a standalone aid package would be viable in the House.

“I don’t see how that moves in this chamber. I don’t know how the speaker puts that on the floor,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said, adding that he still wanted tougher border policies attached.

After Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, eviscerated the Senate’s bipartisan border proposal, Johnson quickly rejected it. Trump has also led many Republicans to question supporting Ukraine, suggesting he could negotiate an end to the war and lavishing praise on Russian President Vladimir Putin, including after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Johnson said this week he wanted to handle wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine in separate packages, but a bill he advanced that only included funds for Israel failed on the House floor Tuesday night.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries was still hoping the House could take up the comprehensive package next week.

“That is the only path forward,” he said.

Casino Royale!

And they said he can't win.

The results of the Nevada primary came at 1am and it was a no brainer.

President Joe Biden won the Nevada primary with 91% of the vote. It is still counting but a clear and decisive win against Marianne Williamson. Dean Phillips was not on the ballot so I guess the 9% of none of the above may have went to him.

Nikki Haley also lost as well. While she pulled in 30% of the vote. Over 60% of the vote went to none of these above. So by default, former president Donald J. Trump won.

The Republicans won't get the delegates due to the primary not being sanctioned.

Nevada voters in the state-run primary had a choice to reject all the candidates on the ballot, and they did just that — with more people choosing to vote for “none of these candidates” than for Haley.

It was a stinging rebuke of Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor — and one that some party leaders had encouraged. The outcome in Nevada was Haley's third consecutive loss in an early-state primary contest.

Still, Haley's campaign indicated that the results wouldn't affect how long she'd stay in the race.

"Even Donald Trump knows that when you play penny slots, the house wins. We didn’t bother to play a game rigged for Trump. We’re full steam ahead in South Carolina and beyond," spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said.

As long as it takes.

Nevada once exclusively used caucuses for its presidential elections. But in 2021, the Democratic-led Legislature changed the law so that the state instead held a primary election, which included early voting, and the opportunity to vote by mail. The Nevada GOP insisted on holding caucuses apart from the state-run election, saying it wanted to control its own contest, using its own rules. The party dictated that candidates weren’t allowed to compete in both elections and that only those competing in the caucuses could win delegates. 

Haley wasn’t alone in bypassing the caucuses. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina had also filed to run in the state-run GOP primary before they dropped out of the race. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ former campaign and the super PAC that was backing him complained that the Nevada GOP held biases toward Trump but chose to compete in the caucuses before he dropped out just before the New Hampshire primary last month.