Democrat News

This post was originally published on this site

Remember the vaunted Trump-Putin summit? It was just a month ago this week, but Americans could be excused for having forgotten. Nothing good has come of it. The cringy Alaska photo-op for the American and Russian presidents certainly didn’t yield President Trump’s long-promised deal to end Vladimir Putin’s criminal war on Ukraine.

In fact, as each day since has shown, worse than nothing has come from that failed bro-fest. Which begs renewed attention to it. Putin arrived to Trump’s literal red-carpet welcome and left with an apparent if unstated license — as then-candidate Trump said last year of the Russians — “to do whatever the hell they want.”

And they have.

On Tuesday last week, a Russian bomb hit a group of Ukrainian retirees collecting their pension checks, killing two dozen and injuring more — another day’s civilian toll in Putin’s ongoing offensive, the harshest in more than three years of war and one that’s struck U.S. and European installations. The next day, stunningly, about 20 Russian drones flew over next-door Poland, a NATO ally, forcing the alliance to scramble jets to shoot down threats over its territory for the first time in NATO history.

And mostly we’ve heard bupkis from Trump — except to keep blaming the war on his predecessor President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, never Putin. Even servile Senate Republicans have roused themselves to press for punishing sanctions against Russia, but Trump withholds his blessing.

You’d think the self-proclaimed “president of peace” would at least be riled that Putin’s impunity since Alaska is a stick in the eye to Trump’s wife as well. Melania Trump wrote Putin a letter — which Trump delivered at their summit — urging him to protect children. “It was very well received,” Trump boasted later.

Oh, yeah? Putin’s public response to the first lady has been missiles and drones that have killed and injured Ukrainian children in their beds and at their schools. Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children remain kidnapped in Russia, a war crime.

What a tragic irony that the president who promised he’d end the Ukraine war on “day one,” and who incessantly contends Russia never would have invaded had he, Putin’s friend, been president in 2022, now presides over Russia’s escalation of the war and its unprecedented incursion into NATO territory. And Trump acts all but impotent.

For three years until his return to power, Russia did not test the United States’ pledge to “defend every inch” of NATO territory. Now it has. And at the news of the Poland intrusion, Trump, the supposed leader of the free world, showed himself to be little more than an internet troll.

“What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” was his online outburst long hours after the news last Wednesday. The next day he suggested the drones’ flight into Poland “could have been a mistake,” provoking rebuttals from Polish leaders and NATO allies. And when NATO’s European members last Friday reinforced the alliance’s eastern flank defenses against Russia, they announced no U.S. contributions.

Much was made last spring of Trump’s nickname among some Wall Street types for his on-again, off-again tariffs: “TACO,” for Trump Always Chickens Out. But that moniker better describes Trump’s Russia stance: He repeatedly sets up a face-off against Putin, and invariably face-plants.

For weeks ahead of the August summit, Trump threatened “extreme consequences” if Russia didn’t agree to a cease-fire. Then, as quickly as U.S. soldiers rolled out the red carpet for Putin, Trump rolled up his cease-fire talk. After hours under Putin’s sway, he came away talking not about what Russia would do for peace but what territorial concessions Ukraine would make. And a month later, he’s still resisting Congress’ proposed sanctions against Russia, even as he’s levied big tariffs on India and China in part as punishment for buying Russian oil.

Nothing Trump claimed would happen as a consequence of his summitry has come to pass. Not a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, nor a trilateral follow-up with the Nobel-coveting Trump joining as mediating peacemaker. Putin has had high-level meetings since the Alaska summit, but they’ve been with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — all drawn closer in solidarity against the United States’ hegemony.

Trump’s embarrassingly weak response to Russia’s aggression, together with his passivity in the face of Israel’s defiance in renewing its offensive in starving Gaza, recently prompted a New York Times analysis declaring “the bystander phase of the Trump presidency.” A Wall Street Journal headline said Trump is “sidelining himself” in foreign policy. On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that, just as Trump sought to rename the Department of Defense to be the Department of War, the White House should be called “Waffle House.” (Or Taco Bell?) The criticisms are international: Poland’s deputy prime minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said in a video last week that Putin, by his hostilities, is “mocking” Trump’s peace talk.

There’s mockery indeed in Moscow, where politicians and state-run media continue to celebrate Putin as the summit winner. Russians weren’t quaking in their valenki when Trump told “Fox & Friends” hosts on Friday that his patience with Russia is “running out fast.” Alexei Zhuravlyov, a leader of the Russian State Duma, said Trump’s “normal state” is “either waiting to talk to Putin, talking to Putin or explaining how well he talked to Putin.” Pundit Mikhail Rostovsky dismissed Trump’s fussing and threats as “a new ‘Groundhog Day.’”

“The Kremlin believes that Russia is slowly but surely achieving its goals in Ukraine,” Rostovsky added. “Therefore Moscow does not intend to stop there.”

Putin has said as much himself. Only Trump doesn’t seem to hear him. Or doesn’t want to.

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

This post was originally published on this site

Southern California Edison hasn’t accepted responsibility for igniting the Eaton fire, but it is now offering each victim who lost their home hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a draft of its planned compensation program.

The owner of a 1,500-square-foot home destroyed in the wildfire, given as an example in the company’s draft, would receive $900,000 to rebuild. In addition, the utility is offering that owner an additional $200,000 for agreeing to settle their claim directly with Edison.

The family of each destroyed home would also get compensation for pain and suffering — $100,000 for each adult and $50,000 for each child, according to the draft.

Edison announced in late July that it was creating a program to directly compensate Eaton fire victims to help avoid lengthy litigation. The Jan. 7 fire destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures in Altadena and killed at least 19 people.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, said in a press release Wednesday that the compensation program for victims was “designed to help them focus on their recovery.”

The company said that it would hold four community meetings to get public comments on the proposed compensation plan, the first scheduled for Thursday at 7 p.m.

“While the investigation continues, inviting input on draft details is the next step in helping the community rebuild faster and stronger,” Pizarro said.

Edison said it had hired consultants Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, who both worked on the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, to help create the program.

“The proposed fund is designed as an alternative to conventional litigation in the courtroom,” said Biros. “The terms and conditions are completely transparent and voluntary. No claimants or their lawyers are required to participate until and unless they are satisfied with the compensation offer.”

Private lawyers representing Eaton fire victims have urged caution. They say similar programs created by utilities to compensate victims of other wildfires resulted in lower payouts than families received through lawsuit settlements.

Richard Bridgford, a lawyer who represents some of the victims, said he believed Edison was offering the compensation program before the probe into the fire’s cause was complete to “try to come between clients and their attorneys.”

“It’s a ploy,” Bridgford said. “They want to pay less money to victims.”

In court, Edison already faces dozens of lawsuits filed by Eaton fire victims. Settling those lawsuits is expected to take years. Attorneys bringing the cases on behalf of victims would get 30% or more of the eventual settlement amounts.

Edison’s draft protocol lists proposed payments for people who were injured, renters who lost their belongings and businesses that lost property or revenues when they were forced to close.

Also eligible for payments are the owners of homes within the fire perimeter that were damaged by smoke or ash.

The payments would be reduced by amounts victims had recovered through insurance settlements, according to the draft.

Among the payments to the families of those who died would be $1.5 million for pain and suffering and other noneconomic damages, according to the draft. Each surviving spouse and other dependent would receive an additional $500,000.

In addition, the family who lost a loved one would receive a direct claim premium — a bonus for settling directly with Edison — of $5 million, according to the plan.

Edison said the direct claim premiums — which include $200,000 for families who lost their home, $10,000 to those whose homes were damaged, as well as other amounts for other victims — were only available through its program and would not be offered in litigation.

Edison said in the draft that it calculated the proposed payments using historical data and its experience in prior wildfire settlements.

To determine the payment for property losses, Edison said it had hired economists at Compass Lexecon, a consulting firm. The utility said it had also hired RAND, the non-profit research group in Santa Monica, to review the proposed property loss settlements.

The utility said victims don’t need an attorney to apply for the compensation. But it is also offering to add 10% to the damage amounts, excluding the direct claim premiums, to cover legal fees of those who have a lawyer.

Victims will get their compensation offers within nine months of applying, Edison said. The company said it was also offering victims a “fast pay” option where they could receive their financial settlement offer within 90 days.

“Speed in processing claims is essential,” Feinberg said.

Edison has said that the government’s investigation into the fire could take as long as 18 months. Pizarro said in April that a leading theory was that a century-old transmission line that had not been in service since the 1970s somehow became reenergized and sparked the fire.

Edison’s direct compensation plan could alleviate the pressure on the fund, which state officials say could be at risk because of the scale of the Eaton claims.

If Edison’s equipment is found to have caused the blaze, the company would be reimbursed for most or all of the cost of amounts it pays to victims by a $21 billion state fund.

Edison’s direct compensation plan could alleviate the pressure on the state fund, which state officials say could be at risk because of the scale of the Eaton fire claims.

The fund was created by lawmakers in 2019 to shield utilities from bankruptcy if their equipment ignites a catastrophic fire. Electric customers of Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit utilities contributed half of the $21 billion state fund. The three utilities’ shareholders contributed the rest.

Edison has told its investors that it won’t have to reimburse the state fund for claims paid to victims unless outside parties can raise “serious doubt” that it had acted prudently in maintaining its equipment. However, even if that happened, the company said, the law would cap its liability to $3.9 billion.

The public must register to attend the meetings at sce.com/directclaimsupdates. The final meeting is at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 29.

This post was originally published on this site

WASHINGTON — Use of solitary confinement in immigration detention is soaring under the Trump administration, according to a report published Wednesday by Physicians for Human Rights using federal data and records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed at least 10,588 people in solitary confinement from April 2024 to May 2025, the report found. Contributors also included experts from Harvard University’s Peeler Immigration Lab and Harvard Law School.

The use of solitary confinement during the first four months of the current Trump administration increased each month, on average, at twice the rate found between 2018 and 2023, researchers found, and more than six times the rate during the last several months of 2024.

“Every month from February through May, which are the full calendar months of the new administration, the number of people placed in solitary in ICE [custody] increased by 6.5%,” said Dr. Katherine Peeler, medical advisor for Physicians for Human Rights, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “That was really dismaying.”

Solitary confinement, in which detainees are held alone for at least 22 hours a day, is used in ICE detention facilities as a form of punishment or to protect certain at-risk immigrants.

In a statement Thursday, assistant Homeland Security secretary Tricia McLaughlin said ICE prioritizes the safety and security of people in its custody.

Detainees are placed into disciplinary segregation “only after they are found guilty by a disciplinary hearing panel,” she said.

Any detainee scheduled for removal, release, or transfer is also placed into administrative segregation for 24 hours, she added. According to ICE’s National Detention Standards, “such segregation may be ordered for security reasons or for the orderly operation of the facility.”

The United Nations has called solitary confinement longer than 15 consecutive days a form of torture.

ICE defines vulnerable detainees as those with serious medical or mental health conditions, disabilities, and those who are elderly, pregnant or nursing, at risk of harm due to sexual orientation or gender identity, or victims of abuse.

Among those categorized as vulnerable, the report states that solitary confinement lasted twice as long, on average, during the first three months of 2025 compared with the first fiscal quarter of 2022, when the agency started reporting those statistics.

This year, vulnerable detainees spent an average of 38 consecutive days in isolation, compared with 14 days in late 2021, according to the report.

The report notes that use of solitary confinement in immigration detention has risen “at an alarming rate” over the last decade, and that billions of dollars authorized earlier this year by Congress to expand detention will likely exacerbate the issue. It calls on the federal government to end the practice against immigrants who are detained for civil deportation proceedings, and for states and members of Congress to exercise oversight.

Nearly 59,000 immigrants were held in ICE custody as of Sept. 7, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.

The researchers at Physicians for Human Rights analyzed individual cases in New England and found “systemic use of solitary confinement for arbitrary and retaliatory purposes,” such as requesting showers, sharing food or reporting sexual assault.

In California, detainees were placed in solitary confinement 2,546 times from September 2018 to September 2023, said Arevik Avedian, a lecturer and director of empirical research services at Harvard Law School.

Last year, ICE changed the way it reports that data. Instead of placements, in which the same person could be counted multiple times for different stints in solitary confinement, ICE now reports the number of individuals.

In California, ICE reported that 596 people were placed in solitary confinement from April 2024 to May 2025, she said.

During the period of 2018-2023, two California facilities ranked in the top five with the highest number of solitary confinement placements, she said — the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, and the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

This year, the data reflect ICE’s investment in Republican-led states. According to the report, facilities with the most solitary confinement stints included Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, Montgomery Processing Center in Texas, Buffalo Service Processing Center in New York, South Texas ICE Processing Center, and Eloy Detention Center in Arizona tied with Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

A previous report by the same authors found that ICE had used solitary confinement more than 14,000 times between 2018 and 2023, including one Otay Mesa detainee who was held for 759 days.

This post was originally published on this site

The Trump administration moved again Wednesday to make it harder to gain U.S. citizenship, announcing a slate of changes to the core civics test that immigrants must pass to be naturalized.

The changes would expand the number of questions immigrants need to be prepared to answer, and increase the number of questions they must answer correctly in order to pass.

The changes, announced as pending in the Federal Register, would largely revert the test to a similarly longer and harder version that was introduced in 2020 during President Trump’s first term, but was swiftly rolled back under President Biden in 2021.

The shift follows other Trump administration changes to the process by which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials determine whether prospective citizens are qualified, including enhanced assessments of their “moral character” and whether they ascribe to any “anti-American” beliefs, and intense checks into their community ties and social media networks.

It also comes amid a broader crackdown on undocumented immigration, and what Trump has said will be the largest “mass deportation” in U.S. history. That effort has been heavily centered in the Los Angeles region, to the consternation of many Democratic leaders and immigration advocacy organizations.

The new naturalization test, like the short-lived 2020 version, would draw from 128 possible questions and require prospective citizens to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly in order to pass. Under the current test, which dates to 2008, there are 100 possible questions, and prospective citizens must answer six out of 10 correctly.

Trump administration officials said the new test “will better assess an alien’s understanding of U.S. history, government, and English language,” and is part of a “multi-step overhaul” of the citizenship process that will ensure traditional American culture and values are protected.

“We are doing everything in our power to make sure that anyone who is offered the privilege of becoming an American citizen fulfills their obligation to their new country,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Immigration advocates cast the change as an attempt by the administration to further impede the legal pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants already deeply rooted in the U.S. They say it is part of a broader, authoritarian campaign by Trump and his administration to vet potential new citizens and other legal immigrants for conservative ideology and loyalty to him — all while the administration aggressively targets people for deportation based on little more than the color of their skin and the work that they do.

“The Trump administration lauding the privileges of becoming a U.S. citizen — while making it harder to obtain it — rings hollow when you consider that it is also arguing before the Supreme Court that law enforcement can racially profile Latines,” said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “All this does is make it harder for longtime residents who contribute to this country every day to finally achieve the permanent protections that only U.S. citizenship can offer.”

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in a case challenging immigration raids in California that immigration agents may stop and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally based on little more than the color of their skin, their speaking Spanish and their working in fields or locations with large immigrant workforces.

Last month, USCIS announced that it was ramping up its vetting of immigrants’ social media activity and looking for “anti-American ideologies or activities,” including “antisemitic ideologies.” That announcement followed months of enforcement against pro-Palestinian student activists and other U.S. visa and green card holders that raised alarms among constitutional scholars and free speech advocates.

Trump administration officials have rejected such concerns, and others about raids sweeping up people without criminal records and racial profiling being used to target them, as part of a misguided effort by liberals and progressives to protect even dangerous, undocumented immigrants for political reasons.

In announcing the latest change to the naturalization test, Homeland Security said it would make the test more difficult, and in the process ensure that “only those who are truly committed to the American way of life are admitted as citizens.”

The department also lauded its recent moves to more deeply vet prospective citizens, saying the new process “includes reinstating neighborhood interviews of potential new citizens, considering whether aliens have made positive contributions to their communities, determining good moral character, and verifying they have never unlawfully registered to vote or unlawfully attempted to vote in an American election.”

In rolling back the first Trump administration’s test — which is very similar to the newly proposed one — USCIS officials under the Biden administration said that it “may inadvertently create potential barriers to the naturalization process.”

By contrast, the agency under Biden said the 2008 test — the one Trump is now replacing again — was “thoroughly developed over a multi-year period with the input of more than 150 organizations, which included English as a second language experts, educators, and historians, and was piloted before its implementation.”

This post was originally published on this site

In the days since Charlie Kirk’s killing, conservatives have embraced a phenomenon they previously called toxic: cancel culture.

The impulse to cancel some voices this past week is understandable: Celebrating murder is cruel. It’s gross. It’s wrong. But the irony is impossible to miss: Conservatives, who long treated cancel culture as an affront to the 1st Amendment spirit of open discourse, are now calling for people to lose their jobs and their livelihoods, all because of something stupid they said on the internet.

This is the same issue that drove numerous stand-up comedians, young men, podcasters and Silicon Valley tech bros into the arms of Donald Trump in 2024. But now, in an amazing turn of events, conservatives are now aping the progressive scolds and speech cops, only with red hats.

Actually, their version is worse. The left’s “accountability culture” mob might have been overbearing, but their agenda was (with a few notable exceptions) largely driven by hall monitors. Today’s “woke right” is executing things in a more overt, efficient and official manner — which for the record means it can violate not just the spirit of the 1st Amendment but the actual, you know … 1st Amendment.

As a case in point, JD Vance, the vice president of the United States of America, recently told Kirk’s radio audience: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer.”

Which raises the question, what if their employer is the government? That would be awkward. But no problem! Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly telling staff to track down soldiers guilty of wrongspeak. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) is trying to get teachers terminated, tweeting: “We don’t fund hate. We fire it” — which feels like the sort of slogan Mao might have had printed on a T-shirt.

And speaking of printers, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi has warned that the government can “prosecute” any professional printer who refuses to “print posters with Charlie’s pictures on them for a vigil.” She also pledged to “absolutely target” anyone who targets anyone with “hate speech.”

Not long ago, progressives insisted bakers must bake cakes for gay weddings, and now a U.S. attorney general from a Republican administration is insisting that printers must print images for vigils. Funny how the tables turn.

Then, there’s the so-called Charlie Kirk Data Foundation, which claims to have a searchable list of tens of thousands of people who posted mean tweets after Kirk’s death. Collectively, this purge campaign seems to be working. A lot of scalps have already been claimed, including those of prominent pundits and late night host Jimmy Kimmel (who was suspended after making remarks about the motives of Kirk’s killer).

But — let’s be clear — opposition to cancel culture is merely the latest principle that Trump-era Republicans have conveniently abandoned. Indeed, almost every tenet that conservatives held dear a decade ago has been reversed.

And people are starting to notice. Oregon state Rep. Cyrus Javadi recently switched parties, citing the GOP’s abandonment of principles like “limited government, fiscal responsibility, free speech, free trade, and, above all, the rule of law.”

He has a point. Trump’s America now owns a chunk of U.S. chipmaker Intel (so much for small government), spends like a drunken sailor, slaps tariffs on everything that moves (bye-bye, free trade) and ignores laws he doesn’t like — most recently, the TikTok sell-off mandate that was passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, which Trump decided to treat like a menu item he didn’t order — until he found a suitable buyer.

But it’s not just normie Republicans who are worried about Trump diverting from the Reagan-Bush playbook.

Comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon recently observed that the Trump agenda looks suspiciously like the dystopia that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones used to warn us about between colloidal silver ads: “Military in the street, the FEMA camp, the tech company that monitors everything, the surveillance. This is all of that.”

So why is this happening? Why the contortions? I’m reminded of an old story Rush Limbaugh used to tell about the late actor Ron Silver.

As the story goes, Silver went to Bill Clinton’s first inauguration as a bleeding-heart liberal and was horrified by the military flyover. And then he realized, “Those are our planes now.”

That’s where conservatives are when it comes to cancel culture. They’ve finally realized that this is their cancel culture now.

And maybe that’s the grubby little secret about politics in the Trump era. Almost nobody cares about values or morals — or “principles” — anymore. Free speech, limited government, fiscal restraint — these are all rules for thee, but not for me.

Cancel culture wasn’t rejected, it was just co-opted. So go ahead. Drop a dime. See something, say something. Big Brother is watching.

Irony, meet guillotine.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

This post was originally published on this site

Stephen Colbert thanked everyone on his staff last night for the show’s Emmy win, concluding by saying, “Speaking of Emmys, Donald Trump doesn’t have one.” Via The Hollywood Reporter:

The Late Show‘s first Emmy win was a nice surprise for Colbert and the team, not only due to the show getting canceled but also because the president was quick to gloat about the news in July. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! [Fox News late night host] Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”

While Trump doesn’t have an Emmy, he did receive two Emmy nominations for best reality competition program for The Apprentice in 2004 and 2005.

Trump has repeatedly complained about losing, suggesting the awards were rigged, something that even came up in a 2016 debate with then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“There was even a time when he didn’t get an Emmy for his TV program … and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged against him,” Clinton said.

Trump quickly shot back: “Should have gotten it.”

Ha ha, loser! Sucks to be you!

Open thread below…

This post was originally published on this site

The right-wing falsely accused Jimmy Kimmel of claiming MAGA killed Charlie Kirk. ABC validated the lie by kowtowing to the efforts to stamp out free speech.

Via The Washington Post:

A network spokesperson did not comment beyond saying that the show will be preempted “indefinitely.” The biggest owner of ABC-affiliated stations, Nexstar, said earlier Wednesday that Kimmel’s program would be replaced starting Wednesday night, linking the move to statements the late-night show host made about last week’s killing of Kirk.

“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, wrote in a statement.

“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue,” Alford added.

As The Daily Beast reported earlier on Wednesday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to take away ABC’s broadcasting license with the false claim that Kimmel had “deliberately [misled] the public by claiming Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Conservative.”

But as The Daily Beast also noted, Kimmel did not claim the murderer was a MAGA conservative. Kimmel pointed out that the MAGA gang desperately tried to paint the murderer as non-MAGA. He said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

What Kimmel meant, which is obvious in the full context of his commentary, was that Trump and MAGA were not mourning Kirk’s death, but exploiting it, and pre-empting any blame for their side.

It’s the dictator’s playbook and ABC, the network that handed Trump $15 million because George Stephanopoulos said President Pussy Grabber had raped a woman instead of saying he had sexually assaulted her, has sold out our democracy yet again.

UPDATE: Naturally, President Malignant Narcissist couldn’t let the story go by without grabbing the limelight… and demanding that more critical voices be silenced.

This post was originally published on this site

Walt Disney Co.-owned broadcaster ABC said it is pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live” indefinitely following sharp backlash over the host’s remarks about slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The move comes after station owner Nexstar Media Group said it would yank the show from its ABC affiliate stations as a result of the comments.

The Irving, Texas-based Nexstar announced Wednesday that Kimmel will be off its stations for the foreseeable future.

“Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets,” a company representative said in a statement.

Kimmel said during a monologue on his Monday program that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican. He said MAGA supporters “are desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Kimmel then mocked President Trump for talking about the construction of a new White House ballroom after being asked how he was reacting to the murder of his close ally.

Law enforcement officials revealed Tuesday that Robinson had liberal political leanings and expressed disdain for Kirk in communications with his roommate.

“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division.

Alford said continuing to give Kimmel a broadcast platform “is simply not in the public interest at this current time.”

Nexstar’s decision comes just after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr blasted Kimmel and threatened to take action against ABC. Appearing on the podcast of right-wing commentator Benny Johnson, Carr said one form of punishment could be pulling the licenses of ABC affiliates, which likely got Nexstar’s attention.

Nexstar needs FCC approval for its proposed merger station group Tegna.

Nexstar has ABC affiliates in 32 markets across the U.S., including in New Orleans, New Haven, Nashville and Salt Lake City.

It’s extremely rare for networks to drop a show in response to political pressure.

Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.”

In 1970, CBS blacked out the image of activist Abbie Hoffman when he appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show” wearing a shirt made out of an American flag.

But Trump and an FCC chairman who has shown a willingness to do his bidding have now seemingly intimidated the owners of broadcast TV stations in a way the nation has never seen.

Paramount Global agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s legal salvo against CBS News over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Within the news organization, there was anger over what was widely seen as a capitulation to Trump in order to clear a path for Paramount’s $8-billion merger with David Ellison’s Skydance Media. The case was labeled as frivolous by 1st Amendment experts.

Now the attacks have spread to late-night TV, where commentary on the Trump administration has become a source of tension. CBS this summer said “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” would end in May, with sources citing financial losses. Colbert had days earlier blasted Paramount’s settlement with Trump, calling it a bribe.

Trump also extracted a $16-million settlement from ABC in a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air statement that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s.

Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, have said they want to crack down on any celebratory remarks about Kirk’s death or criticism of his views.

Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic member of the FCC, criticized the administration’s moves in a statement.

“An inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control,” Gomez said. “This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression, not because it glorifies violence or breaks the law, but because it challenges those in power or reflects views they oppose.”

This post was originally published on this site

Thousands of protesters flooded the London streets today protesting Donald Trump’s visit to the UK.

The protests followed after the Brits welcomed Trump with Epstein photos projected onto Windsor Castle.

CBC reported:

“Protesters filled London streets, calling Trump a fascist and a racist.”

UK Anti-Trump Protests

The new photos and video of the British protesting Trump are something else, considering the UK is America’s strongest ally.

The Guardian reporting that Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called out about ‘very sinister’ suppression of protests at Windsor Castle last night, and praised London Anti-Trump protesters today:

“There’s something very sinister about our times when peaceful protest becomes terrorism: when an ad van going around Windsor Castle perfectly legally is then stopped by the police, taken away, and those people prevented from expressing a point of view.

This is what’s happening to our democratic rights and democratic values in our society. They take away the right to protest because they don’t want us to protest.”

British Never Trump Fans

Below is a tweet from 2019, as UK protestors chat to let Trump know how they feel.

This post was originally published on this site

Oh look. “Stop the steal” insurrectionist Ali Alexander is calling for more violence in revenge for the shooting of Charlie Kirk. If you believe in hell, I’m pretty sure this guy has a spot there waiting for him: Ali Alexander Calls On Trump To Arrest And ‘Possibly Kill’ 500,000 People In Response To Charlie Kirk’s Murder:

When far-right activist and “Stop The Steal” organizer Ali Alexander saw his career implode in 2023 after admitting to soliciting explicit photos from underage males, he announced that he would be “bowing out of public life.”

But that was not entirely true, as what actually happened is that Alexander simply migrated over to the social media platform Telegram, where he has focused his attention on spreading overt antisemitism to his 21,000 followers.

On Saturday, Alexander did a livestream on Telegram to voice his concerns about the emerging narrative on the far right that Israel assassinated Charlie Kirk, allegedly for having voiced criticism of the nation.

After spewing conspiracy theories about George Zinn, the 71-year-old man who was detained right after the shooting of Kirk, who authorities say gave a fake confession in order to try to help the actual gunman escape, Alexander proceeded to call for Trump to round up a half a million people:

Having spent 45 minutes establishing his antisemitic bona fides, Alexander then revealed what he ultimately wants to see done in response to Kirk’s murder.

“My attention is going to be on trying to get [FBI Director] Kash Patel fired, trying to get Donald Trump off his fat ass to avenge his friend, trying to use state power to tell civil libertarians to shut up while we excise all of antifa from our country,” he said. “I think 500,000 people need to be arrested, tried, and possibly killed if they’re convicted for treason or something like that. I think America needs a penal colony. I do not want to coexist with these people.”

Back at ya’ Alexander, but sadly we’re stuck with him and the rest of the violent MAGAs who are intent on starting another civil war in America.

I’m not holding my breath for Pam Bondi to start making any threats against Alexander.