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Thursday, May 15, 2025

It won't be until 2029, when congressional GOP incumbents have already run for reelection and Trump is gone from the White House, that voters feel the sting from many of the "pay-fors." read more


The Boeing 747-8 being offered to U.S. President Donald Trump by Qatar once served the Qatari royal family and has been sitting unsold for years. read more


A Milwaukee judge who was arrested for allegedly shielding an undocumented immigrant from ICE arrest has argued that she can't be prosecuted based on the same case that granted President Donald Trump broad immunity for "official" acts. read more


Mexico's security chief confirmed Tuesday that 17 family members of cartel leaders crossed into the U.S. last week as part of a deal between a son of the former head of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Trump administration. read more


Tuesday, May 13, 2025

House Republicans are moving forward with plans to raise the nation's debt ceiling by $4 trillion as part of a larger plan to advance President Trump's tax agenda. read more


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More: Dugan was indicted on Tuesday for allegedly concealing a person from arrest and obstruction. A day later, her lawyers argued in a motion to dismiss the case that Dugan is "no ordinary criminal defendant."

The motion argued that the problems with the prosecution were "legion," including the fact that they allegedly violated the U.S. Constitution's fundamental principle of federalism. But "most immediately, the government cannot prosecute Judge Dugan because she is entitled to judicial immunity for her official acts," it said.

As evidence, the motion cited the 2024 Supreme Court case Trump v. United States in which the court ruled the president had absolute immunity for "official acts."

The 6-3 ruling involved Trump's criminal prosecution over his attempts to overturn former President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

It didn't provide a standard for what counts as an "official act" or determine whether any of Trump's individual actions fell within that category, saying only that the lower courts needed to consider the case in light of the sweeping immunity afforded to the president.

Dugan's motion argued that the same standard should apply not just to the president, but to judges.

"Immunity is not a defense to the prosecution to be determined later by a jury or court; it is an absolute bar to the prosecution at the outset," the motion said.

The motion denied that Dugan had directed the defendant to leave through the jury door so he could evade ICE agents, but even if she had, "Judges are empowered to maintain control over their courtrooms specifically and the courthouse generally," according to the motion.

It also cited other evidence showing that judges have enjoyed immunity for official acts dating back to the 17th century in England, and carrying on through U.S. common law.

More: Senator Murray reminded the FBI Director that the budget request was legally required "last week," and after the director responded, she surprisedly added, "And your answer is you just understand you're not going to follow the law?"

"I am following the law, and I'm working with my interagency partners to do this and get you the budget that you are required to have," Patel explained. Then the discussion went from bad to worse, culminating in Senator Murray calling Patel's preparation for the budget hearing, without a budget, "insufficient and deeply disturbing."

MURRAY: And you have no timeline. Well, we also need a full budget request, not a single paragraph full of wild talking points that we saw with the skinny budget proposal. We're now having a budget hearing without a budget request. So, Director Patel, where is the FY 2026 budget request for the FBI?

PATEL: It's being worked on, ma'am.

MURRAY: Have you reviewed it? Have you approved it?

PATEL: But not yet.

MURRAY: When will we get it?

PATEL: As soon as I can get it from my interagency partners and get it approved.

MURRAY: Six months from now? I don't know, ma'am, I'm not going to take that time. Well, how do we, as Congress, do our budget and our work without that request and without the spent one?

PATEL: Well, ma'am, I'm here. I'm doing the best I can. I can't make up answers. I'm going to commit to you to work on getting you the information you need.

MURRAY: That is insufficient and deeply disturbing. No response.

PATEL: I've given my response.

More: "Donald Trump does not know the first thing about how a factory operates, of course, and neither do most of the private-equity dorks and middling media figures with which he has stocked his administration, a veritable museum of minor Fox News figures. But he has been inside Macy's, and even had a product-licensing deal with the department store once upon a time"ghastly shirts and ties with a predictable Gordon Gekko meets Liberace aesthetic.

And so Trump's version of quasi-monarchical Leninism is no surprise. It's not one big factory: It's one big Macy's, with him leading the parade."

"Donald Trump's vision of the economy is classic socialism," he continued. "Trump's view of a man at a desk moving pieces of the economy around like rooks and pawns on a chessboard is what socialism is all about"though the old tyrants in Moscow at least had the humility to assume that a committee of experts would be necessary to manage the economy according to scientific' principles or at least the guile to pretend that they believed it, whereas Trump apparently has swallowed his own silly god-man horsepucky, being, as he is, an ass of exceptional asininity."

"He is economically more in Lenin's camp than in Adam Smith's and Milton Friedman's and Ronald Reagan's," concluded Williamson. "He already imagines himself as a kind of royal figure"any guess who the serfs are going to be when we get to the end of this road?"

Trump's tariff-heavy trade policy has drawn criticism from a wide variety of conservative voices.

In an editorial published on Tuesday, National Review torched the president over his "anti-abundance agenda," slamming him for "yammering about American children being spoiled" without ever having had "to make do with less."

The sole Republican judge to defend the rule of law in North Carolina is Republican Justice Richard Dietz, who has remained steadfast in his belief that rewriting the rules of an election after the election is unlawful and unwise. Resisting the pressures of partisanship in North Carolina is no easy feat these days, and his courage should be commended.

Outside of North Carolina, however, Griffin's crusade is over. North Carolina may be a state where Republicans get to do whatever they want to do, but federal judges aren't willing to participate in what is essentially a judicial coup. Griffin can appeal this ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but they shouldn't expect a different result there. That court has already ruled against the argument once.

It's yet another reminder of how baldly and awfully partisan judges in North Carolina have become. The depth and diversity of people who know this lawsuit has no merit is incredible. It includes voters from both parties, elections officials of all political stripes, military leaders and hundreds of judges, government officials and attorneys from across the political spectrum. Now, a Trump-appointed federal judge has agreed. It's North Carolina's Republican judges who are the extreme outliers.

Republicans cannot lament a rogue judiciary or overreach by "radical left judges." They cannot accuse the judge who issued the ruling of partisan bias, although they may still try. This is a conservative judge, appointed by Donald Trump. He is a member of the conservative Federalist Society and the National Rifle Association. It's exactly the kind of judge Republicans would hope " or expect " to side with them. But he isn't " he's rebuking Republican logic and laying bare their attempt to steal an election.

A Trump-appointed judge rebukes NC judges' quest to overturn an election

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