CBS has decided to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It was an extremely controversial decision. Many believe it was a tactical decision for Sheri Redstone to sell her Paramount stakes to investors friendly to President Donald J. Trump.
Larry and his son David Ellison bought Paramount and merged it with Skydance. They are finalizing the deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery which will include the ownership of CNN.
Colbert, John Oliver and Jon Stewart are not happy about the decision to have Ellison own all the networks that were critical of Trump.
Colbert plans on addressing CBS and the president tonight in the series finale.
CBS has licensed the Byron Allen Entertainment Studios Comics Unleashed to run in its place for the time being.
Colbert’s long goodbye to late-night TV ends Thursday night when the host of “The Late Show” appears behind his CBS desk for the final time.
What is planned for the finale has not been revealed but the folks at “The Late Show” have had months to prepare for the end of the network’s 33-year franchise.
Guests in the final week have included Michael Keaton, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen, while there’s been a wacky version of “It’s Raining Men” remade into “It’s Raining Fish.”
CBS announced last summer that Colbert’s show would end, citing economic reasons after 11 seasons. But Colbert is the ratings leader in late-night TV. Many — including Colbert — have expressed skepticism that Trump’s repeated criticism of the show wasn’t a factor.
Could Colbert run for president? Possibility.
The decision to shutter the show came after parent company Paramount’s $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview as Paramount awaited his administration’s approval of a pending sale to Skydance Media. Colbert had called it a “big fat bribe.”
Dustin Kidd, a professor of sociology at Temple University, notes that Colbert leaves at the top of his game and as the ratings leader on late night. Canceling him can’t be explained strictly through economics, he said.
“I would argue that it’s answerable, frankly, through politics,” Kidd said. “There’s been a lot of political pressure levied against this show and a lot of political pressure at work within CBS more generally. And I think that has a lot more to offer in terms of explaining why this show, at this time.”
Colbert’s chief rivals, ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” will both run reruns on Thursday night at the same time as Colbert’s goodbye.
CBS will fill “The Late Show” slot with “Comics Unleashed,” in which comedians share stories. Host Byron Allen has vowed to avoid politics.
The U.S. is stuck on 20th Century politics. The Trump Justice Department indicts Raúl Castro.
The U.S. is preparing an invasion of Cuba to overthrow its president and the former.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel warns the U.S. that they are not going down without a fight.
The U.S. Justice Department announced they have indicted the 94-year old Raúl Castro.
The former president is currently in a retirement center and is apparently experiencing dementia conditions. The U.S. leveling some pretty trumped up charges for the sole purpose to justify another illegal invasion. This is based from the grounds of a perceived enemy of the U.S. and Israeli empire.
International law doesn't mean anything when the U.S., Israel and Russia violate it repeatedly.
The Cubans who left were elitists and did it to avoid taxation.
If the U.S. does invade Cuba, would Russia and China reign in?
You know President Donald J. Trump is a convicted felon and adjudicated sexual predator. So miss me with that bullshit.
The U.S. claims that Castro is responsible for the 1996 downing of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles as the Trump administration escalated pressure on the island’s socialist government.
The indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shootdown of two small planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, who turns 95 next month, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The charges, which were secretly filed by a grand jury in April, included murder and destruction of an airplane. Five Cuban military pilots were also charged.
“For nearly 30 years, the families of four murdered Americans have waited for justice,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in Miami at a ceremony coinciding with Cuban independence day to honor those killed. “They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida straits.”
Asked to what lengths American authorities would go to bring Castro to face charges in the U.S., Blanche said: “There was a warrant issued for his arrest. So we expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way.”
Asked what will happen next for Cuba, Trump said, “We’re going to see.” He added that the U.S. is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to a “failing nation.”
The charges pose a real threat, observers said, following the capture by U.S. forces in January of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to face drug charges in New York.
“He’s going to have to keep his head pretty low from now on,” said Peter Kornbluh, a specialist on the U.S.-Cuba relationship at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
Cuban president condemns indictment
While it remains unclear whether Castro will ever step foot in a U.S. courtroom, the murder and conspiracy charges carry the potential for life in prison or the death penalty upon conviction.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the indictment as a political stunt that sought only to “justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.” In a message on social media, he accused the U.S. of lying and manipulating events surrounding the shootdown, including ignoring repeated warnings by Cuban officials at the time that they would defend against “dangerous violations” of their airspace “by notorious terrorists.”
Among those attending Wednesday’s ceremony in downtown Miami was Marlene Alejandre-Triana, whose father, Armando Alejandre Jr, was killed while she was away for her first year of college.
Over the years, she spoke to multiple federal investigators about charging Castro, referring to him as “one of the main architects of the crime.” But none until now had the courage to seek justice for her family and the other victims.
“It has been long overdue,” she said standing before a giant photo of her father.
Trump has threatened military action for months
Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba ever since U.S. forces captured Maduro, the Cuban government’s longtime patron. After ousting the Venezuelan leader, the White House ordered a blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba, leading to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.
Since Maduro’s capture, Trump has ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba after pledging earlier this year to conduct a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.
Trump’s first administration indicted Maduro on drug-trafficking charges and used that to justify removing him from power and whisking him to New York to face trial.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday urged the Cuban people to demand a free-market economy with new leadership that he said will chart a new course in relations with the U.S.
“In the U.S., we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message. “Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”
Raúl Castro believed to wield power behind the scenes
Castro took over as president from his ailing older brother Fidel Castro in 2006 before handing power to a trusted loyalist, Díaz-Canel, in 2018.
While he retired in 2021 as head of the Cuban Communist Party, he is widely believed to wield power behind the scenes, underscored by the prominence of his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who previously met secretly with Rubio.
Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for meetings with Cuban officials, including Castro’s grandson. Two other senior State Department officials met with the grandson in April.
The investigation into Castro stretches back to the 1990s
In 1995, planes flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue buzzed over Havana dropping leaflets urging Cubans to rise up against the Castro government.
After Cuban protests, the Federal Aviation Administration also opened an investigation and met with the group’s leaders to urge them to ground the flights, according to declassified government records obtained by the National Security Archive.
But those calls went unheeded and on Feb. 24, 1996, missiles fired by Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets downed two unarmed civilian Cessna planes a short distance north of Havana just beyond Cuba’s airspace. All four men aboard were killed. A third plane, carrying the group’s leader, narrowly escaped.
Raúl Castro faced earlier indictment
Guy Lewis, who was a federal prosecutor in Miami in the 1990s, first uncovered evidence linking senior Cuban military officials to cocaine trafficking by Colombia’s Medellin cartel. Following the shootdown, the investigation expanded, and prosecutors pursued charges against Raúl Castro for leading a vast racketeering conspiracy by Cuba’s armed forces.
In the end, only the head of the Cuban air force and two of the MiG pilots involved in the downing of the planes were indicted but have never been apprehended.
A fourth individual was convicted of leading a Miami-based spy ring called Operation Scorpion that collected intelligence about the flights. He was later swapped for a U.S. intelligence asset imprisoned in Cuba as part of President Barack Obama’s outreach to Cuba.
The shootdown led the U.S. to harden its position against Cuba, even though the Cold War had ended and the Castros’ support for revolution across Latin America was a fading memory.
But Castro himself was spared as the Clinton administration raised concerns about such a high-profile indictment.
One of the first openly gay members of the U.S. House who served in Congress until hus retirement has passed away. Barney Frank, a Democratic lawamker who was openly gay, a proud Zionist and at the time one of the proud progressives has passed away.
Frank, the quick-witted Massachusetts congressman and liberal lion who helped overhaul Wall Street regulations after the 2008 financial crisis and made history as one of the first openly gay members of Congress, died Wednesday, his sister confirmed to NBC Boston.
He was 86. He had entered hospice care at his home in Maine last month.
“He was, above all else, a wonderful brother. I was lucky to be his sister,” Frank’s sister Doris Breay told NBC Boston.
Frank represented southern Massachusetts in the House for 32 years and established himself as a leading voice in debates over banking, affordable housing and LGBTQ rights. He chaired the Financial Services Committee amid the 2008 meltdown and co-authored the milestone Dodd-Frank Act, a sweeping law that sought to put Wall Street firms under tougher scrutiny.
He blazed a trail for other openly gay American elected officials, and in 2012, he became the first member of Congress to enter into a same-sex marriage, tying the knot with his longtime partner, Jim Ready.
“It was life-changing, lifesaving for me,” Frank told NBC News in a phone interview in last month.
“I think the key to our having made the enormous progress we made in defeating anti-gay prejudice had to do with us all coming out and people discovering the gap between our reality and the way we were painted,” he added.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, who served with Frank for more than 25 years, described him as progressive and an idealist in an interview with NBC News last month.
“He has been about idealism and pragmatism to get the job done,” said Pelosi, who was speaker when Frank shepherded Dodd-Frank through Congress. Frank called Pelosi last month to inform her that he was receiving hospice care, she said.
“He was a real mentor to so many of us here,” Pelosi said. “I was with him” on the Banking Committee “in the beginning. I learned so much.”
Frank was known for his colorful and sometimes combative persona. He earned a reputation as an eloquent debater, a cutting questioner during hearings and a quotable subject for reporters. In a 2012 interview with The New Republic, for instance, he said President Barack Obama’s effort to “govern in a post-partisan manner” gave him “post-partisan depression.”
Frank did not seek re-election to a 17th term in the House in 2012 and retired from politics the following year.
In a recent interview with Politico, Frank said he was “very proud of Dodd-Frank,” adding: “I think we have been vindicated against our critics from both the left and the right.”
In his final months, he publicly chided his party’s left flank and wrote a book, “The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy,” set for publication in September.
In an interview with NBC Boston, Frank said he believed the American left was correct on the issue of economic inequality, but he criticized progressives for pushing for sociocultural change “in ways that went beyond what was politically acceptable.”
Barnett Frank was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on March 31, 1940, and raised in a working-class Jewish household. He showed early academic promise and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1962 from Harvard University, where he stayed for six more years as a government instructor and Ph.D. student.
He left Harvard to take a job as chief of staff to Democratic Boston Mayor Kevin White, serving in the role from 1968 to 1971 during a period of racial tumult in the city. Then came a staff assistant position in the office of Rep. Michael F. Harrington, a Democrat who represented Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District.
In 1972, Frank entered electoral politics, winning an open seat in the Massachusetts Legislature. He was re-elected three times, earning a J.D. from Harvard Law School while he was serving in the state House, before he climbed the next rung in his political career: a bid for the U.S. House.
In 1980, he was narrowly elected to represent Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District, winning just under 52% of the vote. The tight margin in his first House race proved to be an anomaly; Frank won his 15 re-election bids handily and became a familiar liberal mainstay in the lower chamber of Congress.
In 1987, during his fourth term in the House, Frank became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay. (The first was outed during the congressional page scandal four years earlier.) “If you ask the direct question: ‘Are you gay?’ the answer is yes,” Frank told The Boston Globe. “So what?”
“I’ve said all along that if I was asked by a reporter and I didn’t respond, it would look like I had something to hide, and I don’t think I have anything to hide,” Frank told the Globe. “I don’t think my sex life is relevant to my job, but on the other hand, I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m embarrassed about my life.”
Frank’s political career was imperiled in 1989 after a news report detailed his relationship with a male sex worker who worked for him as a personal aide. Frank acknowledged that he paid the escort, Steve Gobie, for sex but fired him after he learned that Gobie had been using Frank’s apartment in Washington to run a prostitution service.
Barney Frank and his husband James Ready.
In 1990, the House voted 408-18 to reprimand Frank after the Ethics Committee found that he had fixed some of Gobie’s parking tickets; an attempt to censure Frank failed to gain traction. Frank’s constituents remained loyal to him, and he won re-election in 1990 with a comfortable 66% of the vote.
Frank amassed a staunchly liberal record in the House over three decades, publicly advocating for abortion rights, environmental protections, anti-discrimination measures in employment and housing, and LGBTQ equality, including pushing for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a policy that barred openly gay and bisexual people from serving in the U.S. armed forces.
“He was a fighter and fearless,” said Mary Bonauto, the senior director of civil rights and legal strategies at GLAD Law, who was one of the lawyers who argued before the Supreme Court in the historic decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
“When you look at his record more generally, you see his advocacy for people of color, women — you know, it wasn’t just gay people,” Bonauto added. “He had his sharp eye on a lot of people and a lot of issues, and I think it’s partly from his own journey.”
Frank’s most notable piece of legislation was the one that bears his name: the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress’ response to the 2008 financial calamity. The bill sought to stabilize the markets, end the era of “too big to fail” Wall Street institutions and shield U.S. consumers from predatory practices.
Obama signed it into law July 10, 2010 — with Frank and his co-author, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., standing at his side.
In the years that followed, Dodd-Frank proved divisive on both ends of the ideological spectrum, decried by the Obama administration’s progressive critics as insufficiently tough on Wall Street banks and blasted by Republicans and some business interests as overly burdensome.
Frank also drew scrutiny for having advocated for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were privately owned but had implicit government backing. Frank supported giving mortgages to lower-income customers through the companies, which critics say led to their near collapse and contributed to the housing crisis.
In 2010, Frank faced an unexpectedly strong challenge from Sean Bielat, a Republican tea party candidate. Frank ultimately prevailed, though with a more modest vote share than usual (roughly 54%), and he decided not to seek re-election in 2012. (He was succeeded by Joe Kennedy III, a fellow Democrat.)
The same year, Frank married Ready. “It’s nice,” Frank said of married life in an exit interview with the Harvard Law Bulletin. “Life really hasn’t changed day to day, but I still feel that afterglow from the ceremony.”
Three years later, Frank published an autobiography, “Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage.” That summer, on the day the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Frank tweeted a simple hashtag: “#lovewins.”
He is survived by Ready, Breay and another sister, Ann Lewis, and brother, David Frank.
President Donald J. Trump finally endorsed a candidate in the Texas U.S. Senate Republican primary runoff.
He throws his support to Ken Paxton, the controversial Texas Attorney General over longtime incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). The failure to pass that SAVE Act and his tepid support for several of his nominees led to the Paxton endorsement.
Republican were angry over this endorsement. They wanted the president to stay out of the race.
Trump on Tuesday endorsed Ken Paxton in the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate in Texas, ending over a year of furious lobbying and giving the attorney general a significant boost in his campaign against Sen. John Cornyn.
“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on social media, praising Paxton’s support for ending the Senate filibuster and the GOP’s signature voting restrictions bill, and dinging Cornyn for being late to support his 2024 presidential bid.
“John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” Trump said. “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency, itself, both of which were Landslide Victories and, more importantly, gave us the Country that we have today.”
In a statement, Paxton said he was honored by the endorsement and looked forward to “championing his America First agenda in the Senate.”
“I have consistently stood by President Trump, even when the Washington establishment and career politicians like John Cornyn turned their back on the President,” Paxton said. “Now, I look forward to winning this critical Senate seat and delivering victory after victory for the people of Texas.”
The endorsement comes more than two months after Trump initially pledged to weigh in on the race and with just a week to go until the election. Tens of thousands of ballots have already been cast during the state’s early voting period, which began Monday and will run through the end of the week.
The day after the March primary, Trump said that he would endorse “soon” in order to stop a primary battle that, he said at the time, “cannot, for the good of the party, and our Country, be allowed to go on any longer.”
Despite promising to intervene quickly after March 3, when Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton, Trump kept both campaigns on edge for months. He initially said he would ask his non-endorsed candidate to drop out, but his neutral stance meant the opportunity to do so came and went.
Instead, the two camps and their allies have spent nearly $25 million on advertising in the runoff, much of it used for the two candidates to bash each other in intensely personal terms. It brings the total ad cost of the Republican primary to nearly $125 million, most of which has come from the pro-Cornyn side.
In teasing the endorsement Tuesday morning, Trump said he’s “had my mind made up for a long time.”
Thune and McConnell are angry that Trump picked Paxton over Cornyn.
The endorsement is a serious blow to Cornyn and his political allies, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who have repeatedly pushed the White House to back their colleague both publicly and privately. On the trail, Cornyn has hugged Trump closely, boasting of his 99% voting record with the president’s position and going so far as to propose a bill last week to rename U.S. Highway 287 as Interstate 47 in honor of Trump.
The Cornyn camp has made the case that Paxton’s candidacy, given his ethical and personal baggage, would endanger Republican control of both the Senate seat and down-ballot races, including the U.S. House seats that the Legislature redrew last summer to elect Republicans. Cornyn allies put out a memo detailing nine such districts, and 25 Texas House seats, where Paxton’s presence at the top of the ticket creates a big enough drag to put the districts in jeopardy.
In a statement Tuesday, Cornyn emphasized his pro-Trump voting record, noting that the president “has consistently called me a friend in this race,” and asked Republican voters to consider the general election stakes.
“It is now time for Texas Republican voters to decide if they want a strong nominee to help our GOP candidates down ballot and defeat [Democratic nominee James] Talarico in November, or a weak nominee who jeopardizes everything we care about,” Cornyn said. “I trust the Republican voters of Texas.”
News of Trump’s endorsement frustrated Senate Republicans, who have routinely advocated for Cornyn.
“None of us control what the president does,” Thune said Tuesday. “That doesn’t change the way I feel. I am certainly supportive of, continue to be supportive of, Senator Cornyn and his re-election.”
The president’s decision to endorse Paxton reflects his confidence that Talarico is a weak candidate. The Austin Democrat has polled ahead of both Cornyn and Paxton on numerous occasions this cycle, leading those in Cornyn’s camp to urge voters to nominate the senior senator, who has outrun fellow Republicans on numerous occasions.
Trump initially said in early March that Republicans needed to come together to “focus on putting him away, quickly and decisively.” But in the weeks since, Trump has bashed Talarico over his liberal social views and said that either Cornyn or Paxton should beat him easily.
“I believe that any human being running against him, sick, incompetent, close to death or, even a child, would win,” Trump said in late March.
Talarico reacted to the endorsement by renewing his contention that “it doesn’t matter who wins this runoff.”
“We already know who we’re running against: the billionaire mega-donors and their corrupt political system,” Talarico said in a statement. “For decades, John Cornyn and Ken Paxton have embodied a broken politics that enriches wealthy donors while costs skyrocket for the rest of us.”
Democrats have made no secret of their preference for Paxton, who they believe is beatable. In a statement, Senate Majority PAC, the campaign arm for Senate Democrats, noted Paxton’s prior scandals and the fact that Trump endorsed against a candidate backed by some $100 million from Republican establishment groups and donors.
“With all the baggage, it’s no wonder that one-in-four John Cornyn voters say they’ll vote for James Talarico if Paxton is the nominee,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said. “Talarico has $27 million, leads in the polls, and has never once had his own staff call the FBI on him. We’ll take those odds.”
Happy trails.
Trump has backed challengers to Republican incumbents on numerous occasions this cycle. He endorsed against Indiana state senators who voted against his redistricting push and is currently trying to force out Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who frequently votes against the Republican majority. Trump also successfully weighed in against Louisiana GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict the president in his 2021 impeachment trial and finished third in his primary on Saturday.
But Trump’s endorsement against Cornyn represents a new phase of his reshaping of the GOP. Unlike others, Cornyn routinely votes with the GOP majority, voted to acquit Trump in both impeachment trials and was part of the Senate Republican leadership team during Trump’s first term.
In throwing his weight behind Paxton, Trump is rewarding a loyal soldier who led the legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election and spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021. Like Trump, Paxton has faced federal prosecution and impeachment, and survived both. And Paxton has similarly raucous support among the MAGA base that has powered Trump’s political career — a constituency that came out in full force to loudly protest Trump’s reported inclination to endorse Cornyn more than two months ago.
The president noted that loyalty in his endorsement.
“Ken Paxton has gone through a lot, in many cases, very unfairly, but he is a Fighter, and knows how to WIN,” Trump said. “Our Country needs Fighters, and also Loyalty to the Cause of Greatness. We can never allow what happened to the United States of America during the Corrupt Biden Administration, to happen again.”
On the trail, Paxton has routinely tagged Cornyn as a career politician with limited accomplishments, saying that Texas can do better. He’s also highlighted Cornyn’s rare breaks with Trump, including his support for a bipartisan gun safety bill Trump opposed and Cornyn’s doubts about Trump’s electability in 2023.
In 2023, Cornyn said that Trump’s time “has passed him by,” saying, “I don’t think President Trump understands that when you run in a general election, you have to appeal to voters beyond your base.”
Cornyn ultimately endorsed Trump’s presidential bid in January 2024, after he had won nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. That hesitancy appears to have been decisive in Trump’s endorsement.
Trump’s decision to weigh in now for Paxton also validates an ultimatum the attorney general proposed shortly after his second-place finish in the primary.
Paxton offered to consider dropping out of the race if the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill that is a top priority of Trump’s.
This is going to be a challenge. Talerico has a 40% of winning.
Senate passage is inhibited by the legislative filibuster, a procedural tool that requires 60 votes to end debate on most legislation. Unless Senate Republicans end the filibuster, which the conference lacks the support to do, passage of the SAVE America Act is effectively impossible.
But Paxton’s play centered the race on the bill. Though Cornyn dropped his longtime opposition to ending the filibuster in mid-March, saying he would support scrapping it in order to pass the elections bill, Trump remained mum on the runoff during the critical period in which a candidate could have dropped out.
Trump directly shouted out Paxton’s anti-filibuster stance in his endorsement.
“Ken is a Strong Supporter of TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER and, very importantly, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, something which polls at 87%, including Dumocrats [sic], and yet can’t seem to get approved,” Trump said. “Perhaps Ken can help move these important elements of Government forward.”
Polling of the runoff has shown a tight race between Cornyn and Paxton, with most surveys indicating a tie or a narrow Paxton lead. Cornyn finished first in the primary with 42% of the vote to Paxton’s 40.5%.
Rep. Wesley Hunt, who finished third with 13.5% in the March primary, endorsed Paxton shortly after Trump did Tuesday, and asked his supporters to unite behind the attorney general.
“He has the total and complete endorsement of President Donald Trump, and he has mine as well,” Hunt said. “NOW is the time to come together, fight TOGETHER, and deliver a strong America First victory for Texas and for our nation.”
Win or lose, Cornyn will still be in the Senate for the rest of the year, when the chamber is set to take up various Trump priorities including judicial and cabinet nominees and funding for a White House ballroom.
Pennsylvania state representative Chris Rabb trounced his two Pro Israel opponents in a district Democrats demanded change to the status quo.
Welcome to the Squad.
A self described democratic socialist, Rabb said the Democratic Party is tone deaf and its time for some progressive change.
He is boldly telling the public that he doesn't give a fuck, stop funding apartheid. Israel isn't our ally, it's our burden and we must put an end to it by any means necessary.
Hasan Piker, the progressive agitator appeared with Rabb and it helped him win. Rabb went against Sharif Street, an American Muslim who supports Israel and Ala Stanford, a Philadelphia activist who was wishy washy on policies.
Running as a progressive and taking left-wing stances on issues such as health care (such as supporting "Medicare for All"), Rabb notched the endorsement of left-leaning organizations as well as nationally known figures such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned with him last week.
As results came in Tuesday night, supporters rushed to the stage as Rabb took the podium, joined by his sons and parents.
Rabb told the crowd that many doubted his chances in the race - and said he even considered dropping out just a few months ago.
But he said ultimately his sons were his inspiration for running.
That Hasan Piker is a problem. I guess that problem is a winning solution.
He framed the victory as a collective effort.
"This is what our district looks like, and we deserve the very best. They're going to try to tear us apart. We're not going to let that happen because we see our power when we believe in collective action. We are indomitable," said Rabb to supporters.
Rabb is likely to succeed U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, age 71, who has served in the House of Representatives since 2017 and announced last June that he is retiring from Congress at the end of his term.
While this race is not one of the "battlegrounds" for the U.S. House, it does represent a distinct example of generational change among Democrats, given that it shows a longtime representative ceding his seat to a new generation of lawmakers.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) who refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani in his race for New York City mayor quickly endorsed Sharif Street. He appeared with Street in a last minute get out to vote rally. Cherrelle Parker, the mayor of Philadelphia endorsed Street and it didn't matter.
Gov. Josh Shapiro who faced controversy for trying to taint primaries refused to endorse fearing potential backlash.
Stanford had backing of most U.S. House members and Patti LaBelle, the legendary singer/actress.
Kentucky tossed him out like a dirty sack of potatoes.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) falls to Trump backed opponent in closely watched primary.
Ed Gallrein will be the Republican nominee. The Israel lobby and the Trump team poured millions into a race that pitted MAGA against one another. A huge defeat to Republicans who felt that Massie's support to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and America Only stance would stick with Kentucky Republicans.
Nope.
They care about getting things done and if there's a distraction, they got go.
Should have voted for the Biden Infrastructure Law.
Even with support from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) it wasn't enough.
Massie became the latest Republican lawmaker to anger President Donald Trump and then fall to a primary challenger backed by the president.
Trump handpicked and endorsed Gallrein, whose victory is a demonstration of the president’s powerful influence over GOP voters. In recent weeks several other Republicans have been defeated by Trump-endorsed challengers, including Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and several Indiana state senators who defied him on redistricting.
Massie, who has served in Congress since 2012, was one of the most outspoken holdouts. He pushed for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, criticized the war in Iran and voted against the president’s signature tax legislation last year. Still, he tried to convince voters that they could be for both him and Trump.
After losing, Massie took the stage before a fired-up crowd that cheered and chanted, including slogans such as “no more wars” and “America First!”
“We stirred up something. There is a yearning in this country for someone who will vote for principles over party,” Massie said in his speech, which lasted over 20 minutes.
He also criticized unwavering fealty to Trump in Congress: “If the legislative branch always votes whichever way the wind is blowing, then we have mob rule,” he said. But if lawmakers follow the constitution, “we have a Republic.”
Massie signed off by teasing a run in 2028, saying, “we’ll talk about it later.”
Gallrein delivered a shorter, more muted speech at his victory party in Covington, where he first thanked Trump, who visited Kentucky in March to give Gallrein a boost.
Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, ran on his military service and loyalty to the president and accused Massie of forsaking Trump and the party. He is favored to win the general election against Democrat Melissa Strange in the deeply red district.
Speaking with reporters after Massie’s defeat, Trump said: “He was a bad guy. He deserves to lose.” And presidential spokesperson Steven Cheung said via social media: “Do not ever doubt President Trump and his political power.”
The primary turned white hot in the final stretch of the campaign as Massie recruited a phalanx of other Republicans, including Rep. Lauren Boebert, in an attempt to show voters that a vote for him was not a vote against Trump. The president, in turn, ratcheted up his social media attacks, calling Massie “an obstructionist and a fool.” On Monday, Gallrein shared a stage with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The race was the most expensive U.S. House primary in history.
Also Tuesday, Republicans statewide chose U.S. Rep. Andy Barr as their nominee to replace Mitch McConnell, the longtime U.S. Senate leader. In a contest representing a generational changing of the guard for the party, Barr, who was endorsed by Trump, bested Daniel Cameron, a former state attorney general who leaned into his Christianity on the campaign trail.
Trump continues to have a strong base with Republicans despite low poll numbers.
Massie’s challenge
Massie’s challenge was to win over voters who generally think favorably of Trump, the same man telling them to vote for Gallrein. Gallrein embraced the role Trump gave him and focused his pitch to voters on his personal history and unwavering loyalty to the president.
Capitalizing on voters fed up with Massie bucking the party appears to have worked. Kim Dees, who attended Gallrein’s event, said he was “ecstatic,” calling the candidate “very authentic” and “a man of honor.”
Massie noted that he voted with his party the vast majority of the time. As for the remainder, he said those were on proposals that violated his America First principles such as adding to the national debt and getting into military entanglements like the war with Iran.
That’s what Jeanine Thomas, from Union, who attended the congressman’s party, appreciated about Massie.
“He and Trump had the same campaign promises, and he stuck with them,” Thomas said. “He was courageous enough to not toe the line when it was going against what he had promised his constituents that he would do, and unfortunately he was punished for it.”
Massie has voted against U.S. aid to Israel and faced accusations of antisemitism. Denying those accusations, he repeatedly argued that he is generally against all foreign aid. But the race drew in millions of dollars against him from pro-Israel interest groups, including from the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund.
That became a stump topic for Massie, and he alluded to it in his concession speech.
“I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” Massie told the crowd.
Trump’s ire in recent days turned to Republicans backing Massie. After Boebert posted her support for the incumbent, Trump posted on Truth Social asking for a Republican to challenge her — even though the filing deadline in her home state of Colorado has already passed.
“Anybody that dumb deserves a good Primary fight!” Trump said.
Trump also influenced the Senate primary
The president swayed the race not just through his endorsement but by offering a third challenger, Nate Morris, an ambassadorship just over two weeks before Election Day. Morris, who fashioned himself as the MAGA candidate, withdrew from the race and encouraged his backers to support Barr.
Barr was first elected in 2012 in the 6th Congressional District. He too is favored to win the general election in the Republican-dominated state, against Democrat Charles Booker.
During the campaign both Barr and Cameron tiptoed around their relationship with McConnell, whom they previously called a mentor.
McConnell criticized Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and more recently voted against some of his Cabinet picks. He is stepping down after becoming the longest serving Senate leader in American history, coinciding with a transformation of the party under Trump.
Many Republicans, while admiring McConnell’s achievements, see him as out of step with the Make America Great Again and America First movements spawned by Trump. Both Barr and Cameron took note, and while ingratiating themselves to the president, they put some distance between themselves and the senator.
Well WLW is looking for a host, Massie a frequent guest on the Cincinnati right wing radio station will be a likely choice once he leaves office.
Tom Kane, a profilic voice actor passed away from compilations of his massive stroke.
If you grew up watching animation on Cartoon Network, you knew you had the Golden Era in television.
In his final months, Cathy Cavadini, E.G. Daily and Tara Strong reunited with Tom Kane. They came together to celebrate his birthday.
He had a massive stroke and it led to him retiring from voice acting.
Cavadini (Bloosom), Daily (Buttercup) and Strong (Bubbles) appeared in the Cartoon Network animated series The Powerpuff Girls. It was a legendary animated comedy action show that made grew the network's own branding.
Tom Kane died Monday in Kansas City, Missouri, at age 64, according to IMDB.
Probably best known as the voice of Professor Utonium on “The Powerpuff Girls,” Kane had a career as a voice actor that spanned decades.
‘May the 4th be with you’: Kansas’ connection to ‘Star Wars’
Born in Overland Park, Kane was a graduate of the University of Kansas, with his career beginning as a teen doing commercial voiceover work.
Last month, Tom Kane reunited with E.G. Daily, Catherine Cavadini and Tara Strong in celebration of Powerpuff Girls.
Much of his career has centered around the “Star Wars” universe. Over the past 30 years, he voiced everything from minor characters to major characters like Yoda, Boba Fett, C-3PO, and even Luke Skywalker and Leia. He was the voice of Admiral Ackbar in 2017’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi“.
He suffered a stroke in 2020 that kept him away from acting and public appearances. But he returned to the convention circuit earlier this year with his “Powerpuff” co-stars.
TMZ reported that his representative said he died from complications of the 2020 stroke at a Kansas City hospital. He’s survived by his wife and nine children.
Conservatives are bothered by a Matt Damon film but not high gas prices.
Why can't they just mind their own business?
Minding their business would be satisfactory in a world where gas prices are skyrocketing, food prices are insane, Americans are overworked and the politics of both parties are waning.
But what are you going to do as a content creator?
Especially if you're on the right, you rather take your attention off the chaos of President Donald J. Trump to focus on a film that you are giving unintentional attention to.
You are basically giving more interest to the film.
Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey so that he would be eligible for an Academy Award …
ELON MUSK SLAMS CASTING OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN FILM: 'The View' co-hosts weigh in after Musk weighed in on rumors that Christopher Nolan has cast Oscar-winning Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy in the big screen version of 'The Odyssey.' pic.twitter.com/hRdaQPtUOG
I agree that she is beautiful, but casting a Black woman to play a White woman in a foundational work of European literature is no more right than casting a White man to play Shaka Zulu!
From the team that brought you “Why is Snow White Latina?,” “Why are there Black people in ‘The Rings of Power’?,” and “Star Wars has gone woke” comes the latest online onslaught against the diverse cast of “The Odyssey.”
A Greek mythology that follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year long Trojan War.
Defy the Gods. Watch the New Trailer for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and experience the film in theaters 7 17 26. pic.twitter.com/Ve6wUGxw3P
Films and television based the mythology off of white people.
The slightest deviation has white supremacist (I mean conservative agitators) going bonkers. That's why I say "conservative outrage." The goal is to get people angry over culture wars, topics that are considered taboo or rage about some person of color.
They ignore the current administration and its effects on the country. They don't care whether the Americans suffer or strive. They only need someone to vent at and generate a coin.
If we start ignoring them, they fade away.
Lilly Gaddis, Chud The Builder, ______Mania, ChaoticHermes and so many other entities thrive on Black people. They care more about pissing us off than fighting the system that keeps them poor and ignorant.
So the Christopher Nolan film.
The white supremacists are loosing their shit over Lupita Nyong'o and Elliot Page being included in the film. Kenyan-American actress and American transgender actor being in roles that white men and women dominated in the past, screams outrage.
Page is playing a role that he was chosen and they are mad about it.
Oh, Matt Damon.
He is opposes Trump. Conservatives hate him with a passion.
Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o are driving rage for they play prominent characters. Page is a trangender actor and Nyong'o is a prominent actress.
Zendaya and her husband Tom Holland are in it.
The Odyssey is an upcoming epic fantasy action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. An adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek epic the Odyssey, the film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, and chronicles his long and perilous journey home after the Trojan War as he attempts to reunite with his wife, Penelope, portrayed by Anne Hathaway. The ensemble cast also features Robert Pattinson, Travis Scott, and Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, James Remar, Travis Scott, among others.
Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas are producing the film through their production company, Syncopy.
Imagine, you spend all your time sexually abusing women and crying about diversity in Hollywood. Like who the fuck listens to this moron? With all that wealth, he could make his own movie studio.
Film budget $250 million. Universal Films is distributing it.
Some Greek publications and online commenters were critical of historical inaccuracies in the ship and armor designs, as well as the casting of non-Greek actors. The casting of Nyong'o as Helen of Troy—dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world—received particular backlash from conservative commentators, such as Matt Walsh and Elon Musk. Teresia Gray at The Mary Sue called out these responses as racist, saying it was "embarrassing. Though, not completely surprising in this day and age."
Musk making nearly a trillion in revenue as a nobody with a namesake stealing ideas and making it his own
Tasos Kokkinidis at Greek Reporter compared the casting scrutiny to similar criticism of the docudrama Queen Cleopatra (2023), stating that "Nolan's casting ignores the Hellenistic roots of these historical and mythological figures." Meanwhile, the armor design for Agamemnon was compared to the Batsuit from Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy films (2005–2012). Collider's Julio Bardini felt the costume criticisms were not fair, arguing that Nolan was allowed some creative liberties with his adaptation.
