“I just wanna debate this guy, but you know– and I’m gonna demand a drug test too, by the way,” Trump said as the audience cheered. “I am. No, I really am. I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union. He was high as a kite.”

It was a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker amplifying Trump’s defense and turning the Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy. Johnson, who is second in line for the presidency, called the court system “corrupt.”

The display was, by any fair measure, obscene. The sitting speaker of the House — Congress’ top official and a man two heartbeats from the presidency — decided that it would be fully appropriate to show up at a criminal trial and allow himself to be used as a mouthpiece for a suspected felon.

Johnson could’ve stuck to a relatively anodyne script, telling reporters that he expects his party’s presumptive 2024 nominee to ultimately be exonerated, but the GOP leader went far further, lashing out at the judge in the case, prosecutors, witnesses and even the system itself.

The U.S. State Department issued a "Worldwide Caution" alert on Friday, warning U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution due to "the increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence against LGBTQI+ persons and events."

A bill sponsored by GOP State Rep. Dodie Horton would shove Christianity in students' faces

Worth checking out the posters that an activist has prepared at the bottom of the article.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to restart its aggressive crackdown against payday lenders and other companies that offer high-cost, short-term loans to poor borrowers, after a Supreme Court ruling this week resolved a challenge to the federal agency’s authority to act.

The decision is expected to ease some of the persistent political and legal obstacles at the CFPB, where powerful financial firms had blocked regulations, jeopardized the bureau’s funding and used the uncertainty generated by their battle to ward off recent probes and punishments.

https://archive.is/uq5G1

Former President Donald Trump, who four years ago called on Joe Biden to take a drug test prior to the pair’s first debate that September, decided to make the same demand on Friday—one that Biden is sure to wave away once more.

At a campaign rally in Minnesota—where he said he would never return if he lost the state in 2020—the indicted former president recycled his old line of attack against the now-president in advance of the debate next month on CNN.

“I just want to debate this guy, but you know, I’m going to demand a drug test, by the way. I am, I really am,” Trump told supporters at the state GOP Reagan Dinner in St. Paul.

Trump then reiterated what has become a right-wing talking point on Fox News and other platforms regarding Biden’s State of the Union address, which seemed to quell criticisms of the president’s demeanor.

“Trump’s complicated web of political committees spent roughly $217 million through March, with that spending split roughly equally between fundraising expenses, legal bills and actual campaigning.”

“But the same network of groups brought in a bit shy of $220 million in new contributions. Trump is hardly broke — he had $45 million in his campaign account at the end of March — but the high expense rate significantly limited his ability to build up cash.”

“Biden had nearly double the cash on hand of Trump in their respective campaign accounts. But the president’s advantage was actually even bigger: More money was still in the Biden pipeline through joint fundraising committees — groups that raise funds for multiple campaigns or committees — than in Trump’s.”

The House delivered a rebuke to President Joe Biden Thursday for pausing a shipment of bombs to Israel, passing legislation that seeks to force the weapons transfer as Republicans worked to highlight Democratic divisions over the Israel-Hamas war.

Seeking to discourage Israel from its offensive on the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah, the Biden administration this month put on hold a weapons shipment of 3,500 bombs — some as large as 2,000 pounds — that are capable of killing hundreds in populated areas. Republicans were outraged, accusing Biden of abandoning the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Debate over the bill, rushed to the House floor by GOP leadership this week, showed Washington’s deeply fractured outlook on the Israel-Hamas war. The White House and Democratic leadership scrambled to rally support from a House caucus that ranges from moderates frustrated that the president would allow any daylight between the U.S. and Israel to progressives outraged that he is still sending any weapons at all.

He can’t even be bothered to disavow the meaning behind the upside-down flag that was flown on his lawn in support of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

As you’ve probably heard by now, for several days before Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021, an upside-down flag—which had become synonymous with election denialism and the “Stop the Steal” movement, and had been brandished by some of the people responsible for the Capitol attack earlier that month—flew outside the home of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito. 

Given the meaning behind the upside-down flag, this would have been a bold political statement for anyone to make. But Alito is not just anyone—he’s a member of the highest court in the country, where justices are supposed to do everything they can not to appear biased. And at the time the flag was flying, the Court was deciding if it should hear Donald Trump’s case trying to overturn the election (it didn’t, but not for Alito’s lack of trying.)

…

And as Alito has made clear, he doesn’t give a f--k.

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in a statement to the Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Is Moms for Liberty still a thing?