Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton attended a New Year's Eve party in Dubai alongside two men who were then wanted on federal healthcare fraud charges, according to video reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The gathering took place on 31 December 2024 at a luxury high-rise overlooking the Burj Khalifa. Among those present was healthcare executive Anosh Ahmed, who had donated $190,000 (approximately 142,000) to Paxton, including $25,000 (approximately 18,750) just days after his indictment, according to campaign finance records cited by the newspaper.
The president says there's no way all those reports about Russia and China helping out Iran are true.
Hamilton has emerged as an unconventional Democratic challenger. A longtime pastor and author of more than 30 books on Christianity and theology, he has campaigned as a centrist focused on affordability, energy costs, healthcare and agriculture while seeking support from independents and moderate Republicans.
Trump has never been terribly psychologically complex: In his Cold War"shaped mind, Russia is forever coded as "strong," our historic geopolitical foe deserving of respect " and maybe a little understanding as well. Meanwhile, Ukraine is coded in his mind with weakness, Biden Democrats, and Volodymyr Zelensky, the man who in Donald Trump's mind will forever be synonymous with his first impeachment. Ultimately, Trump can be reliably counted on to side with Putin's interests for no better or more thought-out reason than his reflexive desire to curry favor with whomever he perceives to be the "strong horse." (It's why he endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas, if you recall " he wanted to get on the good side of an inevitability " and now he visibly regrets it in every rally.)
Ex-NYC Councilman Daniel Halloran (54) was detained by CBP at Miami Int'l Airport when an inspection of his smartphone revealed thousands of files of child pornography. Dan Halloran was previously investigated and convicted for a litany of blasphemies and crimes. This miscreant is just one of an army of Republican hypocrites in the GOP, AKA the "Guardians of Pedophiles."
Throw away the key for this corrupt sexual deviant
President Donald Trump's rally for Ohio Sen. Jon Husted went off the rails when he made a seemingly lustful comment about the senator's body. "I don't do this with men very often," Trump told the crowd. "I started examining his body because I didn't know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole... And then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He's got these claws."
A 39-year-old woman in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, has died after being diagnosed with measles, officials said. The Franklin County Coroner's Office said that the woman died Saturday and that she had several underlying conditions, including a past diagnosis of measles with treatment. "This is the first death in Franklin County in many years with a patient with a recent history of a measles diagnosis and meets the definition set forth by the Pennsylvania Department of Health for a measles-associated death," the coroner's office said. The coroner's office said it is not releasing any additional details surrounding the case that could identify the individual and no indication was given as to whether the woman was vaccinated or not.
President Donald Trump is weighing whether to dismiss Kimberly Guilfoyle from her position as US ambassador to Greece after a string of reports about misconduct, a person familiar with the matter said Sunday. Trump has been monitoring reports claiming Guilfoyle, who was engaged to Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. for four years, accepted lavish gifts as ambassador and sought money in exchange for providing access to administration figures before she was confirmed. Read more
With a thunderous boom and a cloud of smoke a Russian Data Center was destroyed by Ukrainian drones overnight and the internet noticed the number of chatbots that went down. Read more
Chargers vs Broncos ... An old man can hope, can't he?
The Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement that today's attack on King Khalid international airport in Riyadh "resulted in injuries" but did not specify how many. The statement said that an "assessment of the damage and verification of the safety of the facilities is ongoing". Earlier on Sunday, an "unidentified projectile" hit Riyadh's international airport, the same site targeted in Saturday's strike which injured hundreds of people and killed 12. Minutes earlier, Yemen's Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack.
Leadership positions at the Tennessee Valley Authority are the most lucrative government jobs in the U.S. Since 2020, the top six executives at TVA have collectively banked nearly $90 million. CEO made $12M a year for three years. Part of those salaries came from decisions to put more fossil fuel infrastructure in the Tennessee Valley, and residents essentially signed the checks through their electricity bills, according to a new report by the Center for Biological Diversity. "People who rely on TVA for power are the ones losing out. They're continuing to pay executives who are making decisions contrary to the public good," said Gaby Sarri-Tobar, an energy justice campaigner at the center. Read more
Zohran Mamdani, New York City's mayor, set off a firestorm of criticism Wednesday morning with a social media post ostensibly intended to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. It devoted a brief paragraph to condemning Hamas and commiserating with its victims. The rest was a much longer denunciation of Israel's "ongoing genocide in Gaza," a "world in which occupation and apartheid continue" and a situation in which "our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment." In response, Ammiel Hirsch, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the statement was "so offensive to so many Jews that it is hard to describe how offensive it is." In fact, it's a moral obscenity. Let me count the ways.
Nine people were killed, including children, during a mass shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania, officials said. Police first responded to a home on Perry Street in Erie on Friday, Oct. 9, around 5 p.m., after witnesses reported seeing a gunman firing shots outside the house before entering the residence. When police arrived, they found two women who had been shot to death in the street. The shooting escalated into a standoff as Erie Police and SWAT teams surrounded the home. More shots were then heard inside the home. When police entered, they found the bodies of seven other people, including children, as well as the gunman who died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to investigators.
An ICE agent who was found sleeping on a lawn in Fresno was shot in the stomach after police say he refused to move and attacked the 72-year-old homeowner, causing the homeowner to shoot him in response. Police say 32-year-old David Gonzalez of Texas also appeared intoxicated during the incident. Investigators established that one of the two victims in the incident returned home to find the ICE agent, David Gonzalez, sleeping on her front lawn. She told her 72-year-old father, who also lived there, causing her father to go outside to send Gonzalez on his way. Officers say Gonzalez refused to move and assaulted the 72-year-old victim, forcing him to the ground. The 72-year-old victim's daughter then intervened, causing him to attack her as well. The 72-year-old victim then produced a gun and shot the ICE agent, David Gonzalez, in the stomach.
A new court filing in the criminal case against State Representative Brett Easterbrook alleges the Republican lawmaker spent $500 in exchange for sex from an individual he believed to be a minor. Easterbrook was among nearly 15 men arrested as part of a sting in Escambia County on Thursday that also included at least two other public officials: Satsuma City School Board President Kory Wesley and Orange Beach Public Works Director Timothy Tucker also face charges stemming from the sting. Easterbrook had billed himself as a protector of family values and last session voted for a bill that would allow the death penalty for child predators, although it would not apply to these charges.
