How an Investigation Into a Homelessness Nonprofit Grew to change into Into a LA Vitality Fight
OEIS The Private Eye:
By promising to clamp down on corruption, Metropolis Controller Kenneth Mejia bought more votes than any citywide elected official in Los Angeles historical past. He’s already making enemies.
A homeless man and lady rapidly catch their property as Metropolis Alchemy crews initiate their on a authorized basis cleansing of the streets in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco on January 26, 2022.(Melina Mara / The Washington Post through Getty Pictures)
On a January night at Skid Row in Los Angeles, an employee from Metropolis Alchemy used to be filmed hosing down a sidewalk ultimate toes from a homeless resident. Below the streetlights, the homeless person is on their knees wrapped in a blanket and appears to be like to be scrambling to catch their property earlier than they’re soaked.
The town of Los Angeles, like a handful of different metro areas, will pay the San Francisco–basically basically based nonprofit hundreds and hundreds of bucks to patrol the streets and provide outreach to homeless contributors.
Contemporary Downside
The video sparked outrage. LA Metropolis Controller Kenneth Mejia introduced an investigation into the nonprofit, and interior days, Metropolis Alchemy claimed to beget fired the employee, calling his actions “unacceptable.”
Before the entirety the town controller’s investigation went without problems. The nonprofit complied with the field of industrial’s initial seek info from for monetary info, in accordance with Sergio Perez, the manager of accountability and oversight for the controller’s field of industrial.
But after being asked to offer extra contractual info, the nonprofit stopped cooperating. Then in June, Metropolis Alchemy took to X to denounce the controller’s investigation as “cynical and politically motivated” and an “abuse of [Mejia’s] energy.”
Subsequently, Metropolis Alchemy sued the controller’s field of industrial to dwell a subpoena issued to report that info. The LA city lawyer and city council appear to beget blocked the controller’s field of industrial from fighting the lawsuit.
The town lawyer’s field of industrial said it “did its job” and that the controller wouldn’t beget long gone digging extra into Metropolis Alchemy. Concerning the incident, Metropolis Alchemy blames “activists, alongside side the controller’s crew,” and the media for overblowing “what also can beget been a instructing moment for an employee who made a mistake.” As an different, Metropolis Alchemy said it price them and “the Metropolis of Los Angeles time and money.”
After months, the cease consequence can also be a much less transparent city government.
The incident on Skid Row isn’t basically the predominant time an Metropolis Alchemy employee has been accused of wrongdoing and then now not fired. Within the final six months, two inclined workers of Metropolis Alchemy filed complaints against the nonprofit, each alleging that a supervisor in San Francisco sexually burdened female staffers. In each instances, the identical supervisor gave prolonged nonconsensual hugs and burdened the females. In a single case, he begged his employee to exit with him, asked if her lesbian marriage used to be a “detention center thing,” and tried to discover the employee to join him in his field of industrial cot.
The other case is scheme more disturbing: In September, the supervisor fondled a staffer’s genitals, whereas asserting “it’s so warm, can I smell it and model it?” Months later he did now not inquire of permission earlier than he pulled his pants down, ejaculated on the girl, and set aside aside his finger interior her. The case will skedaddle to a jury trial in 2025.
In each instances, the supervisor dangled job promotions and opportunities in substitute for sexual consideration: “Don’t that that you would be able to very successfully be attempting to discover extra money? I’m able to again you out with housing,” he said.
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Just a few weeks after basically the predominant lawsuit used to be filed, Metropolis Alchemy transferred the supervisor to Portland, Oregon, where he used to be given but another supervisory characteristic. “The claims made in this lawsuit are baseless and cynical, and we’re assured there is no such thing as a reality to them,” Metropolis Alchemy’s chief of government and community affairs, Kirkpatrick Tyler, said again in March to The San Francisco Long-established. (Tyler served as a senior coverage adviser on homelessness for inclined LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.)
Basically basically basically based in San Francisco, Metropolis Alchemy has grown at the moment since its founding in 2018, winning contracts worth tens of hundreds and hundreds of bucks across California and in Portland and Austin, Texas. By 2026, it hopes to beget $100 million in contract earnings.
According to its web site, the crew makes disclose of that money to transform the “energy in traumatized city spaces.” The group does this by hiring largely formerly incarcerated contributors as “ambassadors” to splendid and patrol homeless encampments and public streets. Ambassadors are now not licensed security guards, despite the indisputable truth that many of them list themselves as such on LinkedIn. They stand sentry on avenue corners wearing reflective, municipal-trying uniforms, emblazoned with the crew’s all-seeing-seek logo. “Whereas you seek us,” one Metropolis Alchemy slogan reads, “that that you would be able to’t unsee us.”
Originally of this year, Metropolis Alchemy’s proponents, who consist of San Francisco Mayor London Breed, trumpeted a stumble on that appears to be like to point to that the presence of the crew’s ambassadors at 40 intersections in the Tenderloin, SoMa, and Midmarket a great deal diminished crime. The town is paying Metropolis Alchemy upwards of $8 million to flood this fragment of San Francisco with dozens of ambassadors from 7 am to 7 pm. The stumble on compared rates of crimes dedicated all the scheme in which throughout the ambassadors’ working hours 300 and sixty five days earlier than and after the ambassadors had been added—a length of time correct through which crime dropped in cities across the nation.
Metropolis Alchemy’s founder and CEO, Lena Miller, educated the San Francisco Examiner in January that “this info” used to be “proof” of the crew’s effectiveness.
The stumble on, on the opposite hand, used to be now not ogle-reviewed, published, and even accomplished, as the Examiner identified.
A different of Metropolis Alchemy ambassadors beget moreover been accused—and convicted—of severe crimes themselves, alongside side tried kill. Over the years, the nonprofit has faced now not lower than eight complaints in San Francisco county alone, and as of this year moreover faces a RICO lawsuit in the Bay Put of residing and lobbying violations in Portland.
Dozens of different folks experiencing homelessness beget said in complaints and educated us and journalists at other retail outlets that Metropolis Alchemy ambassadors beget burdened, threatened, or assaulted them.
In 2021 on the initiate of the Covid-19 pandemic, Metropolis Alchemy began working in Los Angeles, in the muse providing sanitation stations for unhoused residents and then expanding to working city-sanctioned tent encampments. It has long gone on to receive now not lower than $14 million from the town, alongside side $2.6 million to lead a pilot program known as CIRCLE—”Disaster and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement”—that is presupposed to offer another option to calling 911.
That identical year, the town, below then-Mayor Garcetti reestablished its 41.18 ordinance, which prohibits “sitting, lying, or slumbering or storing, utilizing, declaring, or placing personal property in the general public true-of-arrive,” allowing the town to brush homeless encampments discontinuance to parks, colleges, libraries, underpasses, driveways, enterways, and entire sections of the town. On the identical time, the town gestured toward an unspecified “avenue engagement strategy” that might per chance per chance per chance offer length in-between and everlasting housing.
“There’s nearly now not a single field in the town of Los Angeles, where anyone can ultimate be on this planet,” Sara Reyes, the manager director of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, educated us.
This criminalization will in all probability discover bigger following the Supreme Court’s resolution Grants Lunge v. Johnson, which ruled that localities can also punish homeless other folks for slumbering outside, even supposing there’s nowhere to head. Within hours of the ruling, Los Angeles city councillor Traci Park set aside aside forth a mosey asking the town to reexamine its existing anti-tenting policies.
Prior to Grants Lunge, the town used to be presupposed to brush a person most productive if there used to be a refuge mattress available for them. But a 2023 audit of LA’s refuge mattress draw came upon that the Metropolis’s info used to be so heart-broken that it used to be hard to take hang of what number of beds had been available or where those beds had been. This audit of length in-between housing mattress availability info by Mejia’s field of industrial came upon that there beget been ultimate 16,100 length in-between housing beds—whereas on any given night, about 46,000 Angelenos expertise homelessness.
“Counting available refuge beds in a fundamental city is monumentally hard,” wrote the Metropolis of Los Angeles in its transient to the Supreme Court. This truth went on to be cited by Neil Gorsuch in his belief as to why the court ought to aloof facet with the town of Grants Lunge and overturn protections for the homeless.
“Punishing other folks for slumbering in public spaces when they’ve nowhere else to head can also now be true, nonetheless it completely is flat-out merciless and queer punishment,” Controller Mejia’s field of industrial educated us. “The Metropolis of LA can and must settle higher.” In a assertion, the field of industrial told the town lawyer to now not put into effect legal pointers that criminalize homelessness whereas the legislative job runs its route.
“Now that the door is originate to criminalizing homelessness, we are able to inquire of to seek homelessness arrests catapult. And going by the Metropolis’s info, we are able to moreover inquire of that we won’t seek punitive measures consequence in fundamental reductions in homelessness or encampments,” the controller wrote.
SELAH’s Reyes echoed the frustration with ongoing criminalization, telling us, “We beget now not seen a single success story” below the 41.18 ordinance because it misses the issues inflicting that disaster—“the largest need is for interior your capability housing.” In 2023, over 70,000 eviction notices had been filed in Los Angeles.
Reyes said that in terms of fixing homelessness, determining where taxpayer money is going is serious, in particular given many initiatives like Metropolis Alchemy’s are being piloted in accurate time. Reyes works with a crew of volunteers to invent relationships and provide outreach with houseless neighbors, and illustrious the fresh forms of spending from the town seek more like a “disaster response” than sustainable lengthy-time frame solutions, in general tasking provider suppliers and case managers with very now not going desires.
When the fresh mayor, Karen Bass, used to be elected in 2022, she declared a disclose of emergency on homelessness and launched her have program known as Interior Loyal. Bass described her program as a “proactive housing-led scheme to bring other folks interior from tents and encampments for appropriate, and to cease encampments from returning.” After spending tens of hundreds and hundreds on Interior Loyal, info from the mayor’s dashboard reveals that 2,728 Angelenos beget been moved indoors rapidly through this technique. (A community audit of Interior Loyal set aside aside collectively by mutual again teams in July reports that 44 other folks died whereas fragment of this technique.)
Bass promised to slash LA’s homeless population by 17,000 in her first year; she succeeded on this promise through an assortment of programs. But despite the indisputable truth that Bass campaigned on prioritizing housing, she refused to topple the 41.18 enforcement, and in 2023 1,912 arrests had been made for 41.18 violations.
In April 2023, after pushback from constituents in regards to the ordinance, the Los Angeles Metropolis Council unanimously ordered a narrative on 41.18 to evaluate its effectiveness. The narrative, which used to be launched with regards to a year after its closing date following a leak to journalists at LAist, confirmed that most productive two other folks bought everlasting housing attributable to the ordinance and that the town spent $3 million on enforcement—with the exception of the worth of extra policing.
“We’ve identified for years that shuffling other folks from block to block with 41.18 doesn’t work, and now there’s city info proving it,” Council member Hugo Soto-Martínez educated the Los Angeles Times in March.
“A sweep is good attempting to throw the topic away so we don’t settle on to seek at it,” said Reyes. “If we ultimate spent our money smarter, you ought to aloof now not beget a single one who used to be pressured to sleep outside in one of many wealthiest cities on this planet.”
More on Housing and Homelessness
In 2022, Mejia bought more votes than any citywide elected official in Los Angeles historical past, and grew to change into basically the predominant Asian American elected to citywide field of industrial. He ran on an anti-institution platform fascinated with accountability namely around LAPD spending and ending homelessness.
We spoke to the controller’s field of industrial as they returned, aloof in suits, from testifying at a federal listening to in terms of an honest audit of Los Angeles homelessness programs, alongside side Interior Loyal.
In March, after the US District Mediate David O. Carter said that the town did now not address desires of homeless residents and misled attorneys, and known as the audit, Mejia known as for his have audit of Interior Loyal. But city officials tell the town lawyer, Hydee Feldstein Soto, can block the controller from auditing the mayor. An inflamed Mediate Carter said of the grief, “We haven’t any accountability at this point. It’s ultimate as easy as that.”
Nearly the identical drama is having fun with out with the Metropolis Alchemy investigation. Metropolis Alchemy has said that it has “taken care of” the hosing incident and performed their have investigation, Perez on the controller’s field of industrial educated us. “We all know what happens when a firm assesses and investigates itself,” Perez countered. “Various pursuits can also rob the wheel there.”
That’s precisely why the town controller’s field of industrial launched its investigation. According to Perez, the town charter affords the controller’s field of industrial with the authority to inquire of a city dealer to point to the services and products it’s providing are worth taxpayer money
“In this occasion,” Perez illustrious, “that video strongly reveals that those services and products…had been now not according to the values of the town of Los Angeles.”
When Metropolis Alchemy refused to offer info linked to its contract with the town, the town controller’s field of industrial issued a subpoena to force it to conform. In flip, Metropolis Alchemy filed a lawsuit to block that subpoena.
“Nonprofit organizations working to attend Angelenos don’t need to be targeted by noteworthy elected officials in accordance to non-public biases,” Metropolis Alchemy wrote in a assertion.
“We had been regularly gay to offer all linked paperwork and info linked to the incident in question,” Metropolis Alchemy educated us. “We challenged Controller Mejia’s subpoena in court because it amounted to an overreach of his Charter authority and an abuse of his energy. Controller Mejia used to be attempting to disclose the powers of his field of industrial to tarnish the reputation of our group.”
The town lawyer’s field of industrial took Metropolis Alchemy’s facet, claiming that Meija would now not beget the authority to instruct that subpoena. She then filed a mosey pointing out that the Metropolis Controller’s Put of residing of industrial lacked the authority to retain out an inspection at all.
“The charter is obvious on the parameters of each field of industrial,” the lawyer’s field of industrial educated us. The controller can behavior “monetary audits of Metropolis Departments and Metropolis Locations of work” and “performance audits of Metropolis Departments,” nonetheless can most productive stumble on particular person funds when “a department is came upon to beget inadequate controls or to beget abused its authority.”
Perez educated us that this used to be a misreading of the regulations: “They are useless atrocious, and threatening a in actuality important tool for transparency and accountability.”
Moreover, on June 5, the town council voted to facet with the town lawyer, successfully denying the town controller the flexibility to demand outside legal counsel to fight Metropolis Alchemy’s lawsuit.
Following that resolution, Metropolis Alchemy dropped the lawsuit against the controller’s field of industrial. It appears to be like, a deal used to be reached between the nonprofit and the town lawyer: Metropolis Alchemy would provide the paperwork that the controller had requested and topple the lawsuit.
Within the fracture, the paperwork themselves had been now not the instruct. The fight used to be in regards to the boundaries of the controller’s authority. The lawsuit, Metropolis Alchemy educated us, “used to be meant to make certain transparency by keeping accountable those wielding public authority whereas keeping our group’s rights against untrue scrutiny and capability reputational injure.”
“Metropolis Alchemy will now not and can’t originate its doors and info to anyone who wants them, no topic whether or not they’ve the energy to seek info from them,” the nonprofit wrote in a public comment on June 5.
Perez said he wasn’t clear why the town lawyer used to be “so timid” of the transparency and accountability. “There might per chance be a peaceful-person’s agreement” amongst government officials, he defined, “to thoughts your lane.” “No one in actuality wants an earnest, plump-throated evaluate of the work that they worth,” he persevered, “because their ego, reputation, and money are regularly tied up in it.”
No topic in the muse calling the January incident “unacceptable,” Metropolis Alchemy now says “the video used to be deceptive” and confirms that it reinstated the employee “who used to be unfairly targeted in social media.” Metropolis Alchemy educated us that it interviewed all interested, alongside side the girl in the video, who “did now not feel that any wrongdoing had happened.” (Metropolis Alchemy supplied no evidence of this.)
Metropolis Alchemy educated us that as a outcomes of its lawsuit, “non-public entities who provide provider to the Metropolis can now feel assured that the Metropolis Controller would now not beget the energy to annoy them.”
But Perez lamented what he sees as a decline in transparency, “When other folks can seek where their tax bucks are going, they are higher judges of whether their government is doing a appropriate job or a imperfect job. By arrive of the unhoused disaster… I have it’s clear we’re now not doing a appropriate job.”
Correction: A outdated version of this text said that in Karen Bass’s first year fairly than industrial, homelessness increased by 10 percent. In that time, it lowered by 10 percent.
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Labor wants a federal judge to prevent Hyundai and two other Alabama companies from what the government contends is the illegal employment of children.
The complaint filed Thursday follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that found a 13-year-old worked between 50 and 60 hours a week operating machines on an assembly line that formed sheet metal into auto body parts.
The defendants include Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama LLC, SMART Alabama LLC and Best Practice Service, LLC. The lawsuit said it seeks to end the use of child labor and require that the companies give up profits linked to the alleged practice.
AP AUDIO: US Labor Department sues Hyundai, suppliers in Alabama over alleged child employment
AP correspondent Norman Hall reports Hyundai and two other firms in Alabama have been accused of child labor violations.
Hyundai said in a statement that it cooperated fully with the Labor Department and that it is unfair to be held accountable for the practices of its suppliers.
“We are reviewing the new lawsuit and intend to vigorously defend the company,” the statement said.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Senate Democrats launch investigation into Trump’s reported offer to oil executives of regulatory rollback in exchange for donations
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to oil executives that if they donated $1bn to his campaign, he would roll back environmental regulations, if elected.
The joint investigation by the Senate budget and finance committees is targeted at the petroleum firms whose top executives were said to have attended that April dinner.
“Time and time again, both Mr. Trump and the US oil and gas industry have proved they are willing to sell out Americans to pad their own pockets,” finance committee chair Ron Wyden and budget committee chair Sheldon Whitehouse said in a joint statement.
Here’s more:
As Mr. Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.And now, emboldened by impunity, Mr. Trump and Big Oil are flaunting their indifference to U.S. citizens’ economic well-being for all to see, conferring on how to trade campaign cash for policy changes. Such potential abuses must be scrutinized.
The supreme court allowed South Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional map to stay, at least for now, after the panel’s conservative majority ruled against a lower court’s finding that they discriminated against Black voters. The decision, which Joe Bidencalled “wrong”, was authored by Samuel Alito, a conservative justice who was yesterday revealed to have flown a flag associated with Christian extremism at a vacation property. It was the second rightwing banner to have reportedly been displayed at one of his homes, prompting the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, amongothers, to call for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January 6. Alito has not commented on whether he will do that.
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to roll back environmental regulations if oil executives raise $1b for him.
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Biden and attorney general Merrick Garland both declined to comment on Alito’s flag preferences.
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Elena Kagan, a liberal supreme court justice, dissented from the conservative ruling in the South Carolina case, and warned it would undermine future attempts to challenge racial gerrymanders.
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Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, squabbled with Biden after Senate Democrats tried and failed again to pass a bill to tighten immigration policy.
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Louisiana’sRepublican-dominated legislature moved to restrict abortion medication – which the Biden campaign blamed on Trump.
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In a just-released statement, Joe Biden decried the supreme court’s ruling earlier today that South Carolina’s Republican leaders do not need to redraw their congressional map, despite claims that it excludes Black voters.
“The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy. Key to that right is ensuring that voters pick their elected officials – not the other way around. The Supreme Court’s decision today undermines the basic principle that voting practices should not discriminate on account of race and that is wrong,” the president said.
“This decision threatens South Carolinians’ ability to have their voices heard at the ballot box, and the districting plan the Court upheld is part of a dangerous pattern of racial gerrymandering efforts from Republican elected officials to dilute the will of Black voters.”
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Senate Democrats tried once again this afternoon to pass legislation tightening immigration policy, with the goal of curbing the flow of people crossing the southern border. But, just as when they first tried to move the legislation in February in a gambit to win approval of a new military aid infusion for Israel and Ukraine, the attempt failed, thanks to the opposition of Republicans who say they want even stronger anti-immigration measures.
Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history. Instead, today, they put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.
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By blocking the bipartisan border agreement, Republicans in Congress said no to legislation that would hire more Border Patrol Agents, add more immigration judges and asylum officers to process cases in months and not years. They said no to new technology to detect and stop fentanyl from entering the United States, and no to resources to go after drug traffickers. They rejected an agreement that would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the system is overwhelmed.
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson alleged that Biden and his allies in the Senate are faking concern for immigration, and just want to shore up support before November’s election.
After more than three years of claiming the situation at our southern border was not a crisis while millions of illegals poured in, Congressional Democrats are attempting to throw an election year Hail Mary to cover for their embrace of President Biden’s open border policies. In the absence of a substantive legislative solution, Senator Schumer should join House Republicans in demanding President Biden reverse course and use his executive authority to finally secure the border and protect American families.
Left unmentioned by both parties were the well-documented efforts by Donald Trump to torpedo the legislation earlier this year, reportedly so he could campaign on frustration over immigration.
Another issue Democrats face is that the party isn’t united on how to handle immigration. Yesterday, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal and Nanette Barragán, leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called the bill “inhumane”:
This framework, which was constructed under Republican hostage-taking, does nothing to address the longstanding updates needed to modernize our outdated immigration system, create more legal pathways, and recognize the enormous contributions of immigrants to communities and our economy.
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While the investments in asylum officers and immigration judges are welcome and needed, these alone cannot address the negative effects of a new Title 42-like expulsion authority that will close the border and turn away people seeking asylum without due process. Such a policy will be a boon to cartels who prey on migrants and would do nothing to address the root causes of migration – which will continue to send immigrants to the border. It is worth remembering that under Donald Trump, such a policy was not only declared unlawful by the courts, but it also led to increases – not decreases – in illegal border crossing.
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At a press conference today, attorney general Merrick Garland repudiated a claim by Donald Trump that the federal agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida two years ago were given the authority to kill him.
The former president made the allegation in a fundraising email, but the attorney general said it was an “extremely dangerous” distortion of the department’s policies, which were also followed when Joe Biden’s home was searched for classified material:
Attorney General Garland on former President Trump's claim that the Justice Department had authorization to kill him during the Mar-a-Lago raid: "That allegation is false and it is extremely dangerous." pic.twitter.com/mAEfeCejwF
And here’s a recap of what exactly Trump was alleging:
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Louisiana’s Republican-dominated state legislature has moved to further tighten access to two prescription drugs used in medication abortion, the Associated Press reports.
Here’s more on the move, which comes as we await a ruling from the US supreme court on whether mifepristone, one of the drugs targeted by the new Louisiana law, can remain available nationwide:
Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.
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Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.
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Louisiana currently has a near-total abortion ban in place, applying both to surgical and medical abortions. The GOP-dominated legislature’s push to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol could possibly open the door for other Republican states with abortion bans that are seeking tighter restrictions on the drugs.
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Current Louisiana law already requires a prescription for both drugs and makes it a crime to use them to induce an abortion in most cases. The bill would make it harder to obtain the pills by placing them on the list of Schedule IV drugs under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law.
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The supreme court has allowed South Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional maps to stay, at least for now, after the panel’s conservative majority turned away a request from challengers that they be thrown out for discriminating against Black voters. The decision was authored by Samuel Alito, a conservative justice who was yesterday revealed to have flown a flag associated with Christian extremism at a vacation property. It was the second rightwing flag to have reportedly been displayed at his properties, prompting the House’s top Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, amongothers, to call for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January 6. Alito has not commented on if he will do that.
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to roll back environmental regulations if oil executives raise $1bn for him.
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Joe Biden and attorney general Merrick Garland both declined to comment on Alito’s flag preferences.
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Elena Kagan, a liberal supreme court justice, dissented from the conservative ruling in the South Carolina case, and warned it would undermine future attempts to challenge racial gerrymanders.
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Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to oil executives that if they donated $1bn to his campaign, he would roll back environmental regulations, if elected.
The joint investigation by the Senate budget and finance committees is targeted at the petroleum firms whose top executives were said to have attended that April dinner.
“Time and time again, both Mr. Trump and the US oil and gas industry have proved they are willing to sell out Americans to pad their own pockets,” finance committee chair Ron Wyden and budget committee chair Sheldon Whitehouse said in a joint statement.
As Mr. Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.And now, emboldened by impunity, Mr. Trump and Big Oil are flaunting their indifference to U.S. citizens’ economic well-being for all to see, conferring on how to trade campaign cash for policy changes. Such potential abuses must be scrutinized.
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House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has become the highest-ranking Democrat to call for supreme court justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself over the two rightwing flags reported to have flown over his properties.
At a press conference today, Jeffries called on Alito, a conservative stalwart on the court, to step back from cases concerning the January 6 insurrection, and warned that the party could work to pass legislation imposing an enforceable code of ethics on the court:
.@RepJeffries: "Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas are totally out of control…In the case of Samuel Alito, he definitively needs to recuse himself from any matter pending before the United States Supreme Court that has to do with the January 6th violent insurrection." pic.twitter.com/JrxMSnXdKp
The justices still have not released their opinion on Donald Trump’s petition for immunity from the federal charges brought against him for attempting to overturn the 2020 election – which culminated in his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol.
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The supreme court’s conservative supermajority has turned back a challenge to South Carolina’s congressional maps on the grounds that they were a racial gerrymander.
In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservatives rejected a lower court ruling that found the state’s Republican leadership had undertaken an “effective bleaching” of a congressional district, by drawing lines to exclude Black voters.
The decision’s effect is to deny Democrats the potential opportunity to pick up a seat in a state as they aim to retake the majority in the House in November’s elections.
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The supreme court will in a few minutes release its latest batch of opinions.
We do not know how many they will release, or which cases, but there are several key issues pending the before the court, including conservative attempts to limit access to abortion pill mifepristone, and to strike down a Biden administration policy that requires federally funded hospitals perform the procedure in emergencies, even in states where abortion is banned.
The justices are also considering Donald Trump’s petition for immunity from charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, as well as a challenge to South Carolina’s congressional maps. Here is more on the latter:
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The New York Times found conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s New Jersey vacation home flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which dates back to the Revolutionary War, and has been adopted by far-right Christians:
It’s the second controversial flag found outside an Alito residence. Last week, the Times reported that shortly before Joe Biden took office, Alito’s home in Virginia flew an upside-down American flag, which had been adopted as a symbol by those who believed Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Alito told the Times his wife had put that flag up after a dispute with their neighbor, but he declined to comment about the banner found at his vacation home in New Jersey. Here’s more on this:
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Conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alitoflew a rightwing Christian flag carried by insurrectionists on January 6 outside a vacation home, the New York Times reported yesterday. The story came a week after the Times revealed that a different flag associated with Donald Trump’s election lies appeared outside his suburban Washington DC residence shortly before Joe Biden took office. The justice blamed his wife for the first episode, and had no comment on the flag flown outside the New Jersey vacation property, but to top Democrats, it is clear that Alito needs to step back from cases involving the attack on the Capitol and the 2020 election. Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, made the demand, while calling the flag “apparent ethical misconduct”, and progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the matter should be investigated.
Meanwhile, the supreme court is scheduled to, at 10am ET, issue another batch of decisions. There is no telling which cases they may weigh in on, but pending on their docket is Trump’s attempt to be granted immunity from prosecution for his 2020 election meddling attempt as well as twocases dealing with access to abortion that came after the court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – with an opinion Alito authored.
Biden is spending much of the day with Kenyan president William Ruto, who is on an official visit to Washington DC. The president hosts the East African leader for a state dinner in the evening – the first for any African leader since George W Bush dined with Ghana’s John Kufuor in 2008.
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Republican House speaker Mike Johnson wants to invite Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give an address to Congress, but is waiting to hear from Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer. Perhaps the Democrat will make his decision known today.
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The House is expected to vote on Republican-backed legislation to repeal a Washington DC law allowing non-citizens to vote in its local elections.
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Key events
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Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Closing summary
The supreme court allowed South Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional map to stay, at least for now, after the panel’s conservative majority ruled against a lower court’s finding that they discriminated against Black voters. The decision, which Joe Bidencalled “wrong”, was authored by Samuel Alito, a conservative justice who was yesterday revealed to have flown a flag associated with Christian extremism at a vacation property. It was the second rightwing banner to have reportedly been displayed at one of his homes, prompting the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, amongothers, to call for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January 6. Alito has not commented on whether he will do that.
Here’s what else happened:
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to roll back environmental regulations if oil executives raise $1b for him.
Biden and attorney general Merrick Garland both declined to comment on Alito’s flag preferences.
Elena Kagan, a liberal supreme court justice, dissented from the conservative ruling in the South Carolina case, and warned it would undermine future attempts to challenge racial gerrymanders.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, squabbled with Biden after Senate Democrats tried and failed again to pass a bill to tighten immigration policy.
Louisiana’sRepublican-dominated legislature moved to restrict abortion medication – which the Biden campaign blamed on Trump.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Biden calls supreme court’s ruling on South Carolina congressional map ‘wrong’
In a just-released statement, Joe Biden decried the supreme court’s ruling earlier today that South Carolina’s Republican leaders do not need to redraw their congressional map, despite claims that it excludes Black voters.
“The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy. Key to that right is ensuring that voters pick their elected officials – not the other way around. The Supreme Court’s decision today undermines the basic principle that voting practices should not discriminate on account of race and that is wrong,” the president said.
“This decision threatens South Carolinians’ ability to have their voices heard at the ballot box, and the districting plan the Court upheld is part of a dangerous pattern of racial gerrymandering efforts from Republican elected officials to dilute the will of Black voters.”
Here’s more on the court’s finding:
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Biden, Johnson squabble after GOP torpedoes Senate immigration bill
Senate Democrats tried once again this afternoon to pass legislation tightening immigration policy, with the goal of curbing the flow of people crossing the southern border. But, just as when they first tried to move the legislation in February in a gambit to win approval of a new military aid infusion for Israel and Ukraine, the attempt failed, thanks to the opposition of Republicans who say they want even stronger anti-immigration measures.
In a statement following the vote, Joe Biden accused the GOP of indifference to the issue of border security:
Congressional Republicans do not care about securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. If they did, they would have voted for the toughest border enforcement in history. Instead, today, they put partisan politics ahead of our country’s national security.
By blocking the bipartisan border agreement, Republicans in Congress said no to legislation that would hire more Border Patrol Agents, add more immigration judges and asylum officers to process cases in months and not years. They said no to new technology to detect and stop fentanyl from entering the United States, and no to resources to go after drug traffickers. They rejected an agreement that would give me, as President, a new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the system is overwhelmed.
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson alleged that Biden and his allies in the Senate are faking concern for immigration, and just want to shore up support before November’s election.
After more than three years of claiming the situation at our southern border was not a crisis while millions of illegals poured in, Congressional Democrats are attempting to throw an election year Hail Mary to cover for their embrace of President Biden’s open border policies. In the absence of a substantive legislative solution, Senator Schumer should join House Republicans in demanding President Biden reverse course and use his executive authority to finally secure the border and protect American families.
Left unmentioned by both parties were the well-documented efforts by Donald Trump to torpedo the legislation earlier this year, reportedly so he could campaign on frustration over immigration.
Another issue Democrats face is that the party isn’t united on how to handle immigration. Yesterday, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal and Nanette Barragán, leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called the bill “inhumane”:
This framework, which was constructed under Republican hostage-taking, does nothing to address the longstanding updates needed to modernize our outdated immigration system, create more legal pathways, and recognize the enormous contributions of immigrants to communities and our economy.
While the investments in asylum officers and immigration judges are welcome and needed, these alone cannot address the negative effects of a new Title 42-like expulsion authority that will close the border and turn away people seeking asylum without due process. Such a policy will be a boon to cartels who prey on migrants and would do nothing to address the root causes of migration – which will continue to send immigrants to the border. It is worth remembering that under Donald Trump, such a policy was not only declared unlawful by the courts, but it also led to increases – not decreases – in illegal border crossing.
While Donald Trump has already effectively clinched the Republican presidential nomination, the Guardian’s Jason Wilson reports that rightwing lobbyists are working behind the scenes to cement deeper ties between GOP lawmakers and groups supporting the ex-president’s agenda:
A powerful, rightwing lobbying group is promoting a hard-right policy agenda and cementing ties between the Republican party and the far right at at least 21 events involving senators, members of Congress, and both junior and senior political aides, documents obtained by the Guardian show.
The documents offer previously unreported details of Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) trainings and “bootcamps” for congressional staff at CPI’s sprawling Maryland ranch, and lavish, star-studded retreats for members of Congress – mostly members of the far-right Freedom caucus – at a string of Florida resorts.
They also show how CPI, widely described as the “nerve center of the Maga movement”, enlisted its own network of affiliated organizations along with like-minded far-right organizations – some classified as hate groups by experts – as well as individual extremists to promote anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-vaccine policies, along with others premised on the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
The revelations raise further questions about the powerful influence exercised on Capitol Hill staffers by the well-heeled NGO, and the extent of its successes in moving Republican elected officials even further to the right.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Attorney general Garland says Trump claim the justice department was authorized to kill him during Mar-a-Lago search is ‘extremely dangerous’
At a press conference today, attorney general Merrick Garland repudiated a claim by Donald Trump that the federal agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida two years ago were given the authority to kill him.
The former president made the allegation in a fundraising email, but the attorney general said it was an “extremely dangerous” distortion of the department’s policies, which were also followed when Joe Biden’s home was searched for classified material:
Attorney General Garland on former President Trump's claim that the Justice Department had authorization to kill him during the Mar-a-Lago raid: "That allegation is false and it is extremely dangerous." pic.twitter.com/mAEfeCejwF
Attorney General Garland on former President Trump’s claim that the Justice Department had authorization to kill him during the Mar-a-Lago raid: “That allegation is false and it is extremely dangerous.” pic.twitter.com/mAEfeCejwF
And here’s a recap of what exactly Trump was alleging:
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign says Donald Trump is to blame for the move by Louisiana Republicans to tighten access to abortion medication.
From spokesperson Lauren Hitt:
This Louisiana bill also creates a registry, on which every single person who is prescribed abortion medication will be listed – truly state monitoring of pregnancies.
This Louisiana bill also creates a registry, on which every single person who is prescribed abortion medication will be listed – truly state monitoring of pregnancies.
The Biden campaign has banked on rising public support for access to abortion to translate into votes for the president in November. Here’s more on the latest opinion polls on the issue:
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Louisiana Republicans move to tighten access to abortion medication
Louisiana’s Republican-dominated state legislature has moved to further tighten access to two prescription drugs used in medication abortion, the Associated Press reports.
Here’s more on the move, which comes as we await a ruling from the US supreme court on whether mifepristone, one of the drugs targeted by the new Louisiana law, can remain available nationwide:
Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor.
Supporters of the reclassification of mifepristone and misoprostol, commonly known as “abortion pills”, say it would protect expectant mothers from coerced abortions. Numerous doctors, meanwhile, have said it will make it harder for them to prescribe the medicines they use for other important reproductive healthcare needs, and could delay treatment.
Louisiana currently has a near-total abortion ban in place, applying both to surgical and medical abortions. The GOP-dominated legislature’s push to reclassify mifepristone and misoprostol could possibly open the door for other Republican states with abortion bans that are seeking tighter restrictions on the drugs.
Current Louisiana law already requires a prescription for both drugs and makes it a crime to use them to induce an abortion in most cases. The bill would make it harder to obtain the pills by placing them on the list of Schedule IV drugs under the state’s Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law.
The investigation into the 11 April dinner comes a day after Trump attended a Houston lunch to ask oil executives for more campaign money.
Trump attended the invitation-only meeting at Houston’s ritzy Post Oak hotel. The lunch was organized by three major oil executives, and came only a week after severe thunderstorms hit the Houston area.
Climate advocates in Texas have condemned Trump’s pleas to the oil industry as the state struggles with extreme weather exacerbated by the climate crisis.
“Houstonians are staring at Trump in disbelief as he flies in to beg big oil for funds just days after the city’s climate disaster,” said Alex Glass, communications director at the climate advocacy organization Climate Power, and a former Houston resident.
The 11 April dinner was reportedly called an “energy round table”, the Times reported.
Executives from major oil companies including ExxonMobil and EQT Corporation were in attendance.
The event was organized by oil tycoon Harold Hamm, the Washington Post first reported. Hamm and others are reportedly organizing another fundraiser for Trump later this year, which is expected to bring high donations.
Here’s more from the Times:
Over a dinner of chopped steak, Mr. Trump repeated his public promises to delete Mr. Biden’s pollution controls, telling the attendees that they should donate heavily to help him beat Mr. Biden because his policies would help their industries.
“That has been his pitch to everybody,” said Michael McKenna, who worked in the Trump White House but did not attend the event in Florida.
Mr. McKenna said the former president’s appeal to the fossil fuel industry could be summed up as: “Look, you want me to win. You might not even like me, but your other choice is four more years of these guys,” referring to the Biden administration. He added, “The uniform sentiment of guys in the business community is ‘We don’t want four more years of Team Biden.’”
The Senate Democrats’ investigation into Trump’s alleged quid-pro-quo suggestion to oil executives stems from an 11 April dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the New York Times reported.
Trump reportedly told 20 oil executives that they should donate $1b to his campaign as they would save more than that amount in “taxes and legal fees” once Trump was elected as he would repeal Biden’s restrictions on drilling that hurt their industries.
The supreme court has allowed South Carolina’s Republican-drawn congressional maps to stay, at least for now, after the panel’s conservative majority turned away a request from challengers that they be thrown out for discriminating against Black voters. The decision was authored by Samuel Alito, a conservative justice who was yesterday revealed to have flown a flag associated with Christian extremism at a vacation property. It was the second rightwing flag to have reportedly been displayed at his properties, prompting the House’s top Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, amongothers, to call for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January 6. Alito has not commented on if he will do that.
Here’s what else is going on:
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to roll back environmental regulations if oil executives raise $1bn for him.
Joe Biden and attorney general Merrick Garland both declined to comment on Alito’s flag preferences.
Elena Kagan, a liberal supreme court justice, dissented from the conservative ruling in the South Carolina case, and warned it would undermine future attempts to challenge racial gerrymanders.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com: Senate Democrats launch investigation into Trump’s reported offer to oil executives of regulatory rollback in exchange for donations
Senate Democrats have launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s reported offer to oil executives that if they donated $1bn to his campaign, he would roll back environmental regulations, if elected.
The joint investigation by the Senate budget and finance committees is targeted at the petroleum firms whose top executives were said to have attended that April dinner.
“Time and time again, both Mr. Trump and the US oil and gas industry have proved they are willing to sell out Americans to pad their own pockets,” finance committee chair Ron Wyden and budget committee chair Sheldon Whitehouse said in a joint statement.
Here’s more:
As Mr. Trump funnels campaign money into his businesses and uses it as a slush fund to pay his legal fees, Big Oil has been lobbying aggressively to protect and expand its profits at the expense of the American taxpayer.And now, emboldened by impunity, Mr. Trump and Big Oil are flaunting their indifference to U.S. citizens’ economic well-being for all to see, conferring on how to trade campaign cash for policy changes. Such potential abuses must be scrutinized.
A former White House lawyer for Donald Trump says he should already be on trial for the classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports:
Donald Trump’s former White House lawyer has attacked Aileen Cannon, the judge handling the ex-president’s classified documents charges, for repeated delays, attributing her rulings to “incompetence” and “perceived bias” and saying the case should have already come to trial.
Ty Cobb, the luxuriantly whiskered attorney who served as Trump’s counsel during former FBI director Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, said decisions taken by Cannon, a Trump-appointed judge in the US district court in Florida, virtually guaranteed that the case would not be tried before November’s presidential poll.
In an interview with CNN, Cobb said Cannon had delayed on issues that most federal judges would have long since dealt with.
“I don’t think this case will move at all,” he said. “And I think the fact that she’s scheduling hearings, multiple hearings, sort of one or two motions at a time is compelling evidence of that. Most federal judges would have long ago ruled on all the pending motions.
“And frankly, this is a case that should’ve started trial yesterday or two days ago when the original trial date was set. This case could have easily gotten to trial. Only her incompetence and perceived bias has prevented that.”
Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace’s district is at the heart of the supreme court case in which the challengers to legislative maps drawn by the state’s Republican lawmakers argued that they constituted an illegal racial gerrymander.
Here’s what Mace had to say after the supreme court’s conservative majority today ruled against the challengers:
Today the Supreme Court affirmed what everyone in the state of South Carolina already knew: redistricting was not racially motivated and served in the best interest of constituencies of South Carolina. 🇺🇸#LowcountryFirst
Today the Supreme Court affirmed what everyone in the state of South Carolina already knew: redistricting was not racially motivated and served in the best interest of constituencies of South Carolina. 🇺🇸#LowcountryFirst
And here’s a recap of the decision, which could have ripple effects on congressional maps across the south:
Politico reports that Samuel Alito seemed brusque when he announced the opinion he authored that essentially allows South Carolina to use Republican-drawn congressional maps, even though challengers claimed they discriminated against African Americans:
Alito, who has been under fire in recent days over claims that the display of flags at his Virginia home and New Jersey shore house reflected bias and violated judicial ethics, delivered an unusually short, almost perfunctory summary of his opinion when the court announced its decisions from the bench Thursday morning.
Reporters in the court’s press room had only just begun to read the voting-rights ruling when he moved on to an unrelated, criminal-justice opinion he also wrote.
However, the court’s ruling, which was joined by all six conservative justices, did not completely end the challenge to South Carolina’s maps, Politico notes:
The high court’s ruling did not entirely foreclose the possibility that civil rights groups might eventually prevail in their challenge to the map on what Alito said was a distinct theory under the Voting Rights Act of diluting minority votes.
The majority ordered the case returned to the lower court for a fresh look at that issue by the panel that earlier ruled the map unconstitutional. All of those judges are Democratic appointees.
But with the state’s congressional primaries looming on June 11, and the lower court already having given the green light to use the legislature’s map this year, the chances of any changes in the map this year seem vanishingly remote.
We often think we know our spouse inside out until one revelation shatters our entire reality. Jim experienced this when he stumbled upon a secret bank account belonging to his wife. A confrontation led to a heated argument and things quickly escalated. Seeking advice, Martin shared his story with us.
OEIS Cheating Spouse Private Investigator: This is Martin’s letter.
OEIS Cheating Spouse Private Investigator: Set clear financial boundaries.
Take a seat with your spouse to establish transparent financial boundaries and expectations. Have a conversation about how you’ll handle finances going forward, including being open about income, expenses, and savings objectives.
By communicating openly and agreeing on financial terms together, you can build trust and reduce the likelihood of future misunderstandings about money.
Consider exploring couples therapy to tackle the underlying issues of trust and communication. A competent therapist can assist in fostering constructive dialogue, uncovering hidden concerns, and guiding both of you toward rebuilding trust and understanding.
Therapy can help you develop healthier communication habits and effective conflict-resolution strategies, ultimately strengthening your relationship along the way.
OEIS Cheating Spouse Private Investigator: Consult with a legal professional.
Considering the complexity of the situation and the potential division of assets, it’s wise to seek advice from a family law attorney. They can offer guidance on the legal implications of dividing assets, including your rights to a share of the business profits.
Understanding your legal rights and options can empower you to make informed decisions and navigate the situation with clarity.
OEIS Cheating Spouse Private Investigator: Take a moment to reevaluate the dynamics of support.
Pause for a moment, Martin, and reevaluate your role in supporting your sister’s family. While your dedication to helping them is admirable, it’s crucial to prioritize your marriage and address any concerns your wife may have about how resources are being allocated.
Consider finding alternative ways to support your sister’s family while respecting your wife’s boundaries and financial priorities. Aim for a balanced approach that nurtures both relationships.
Money and financial matters frequently create tension within a relationship. Barbara, a reader like you, recently sought advice from Bright Side after finding out that her husband had been secretly giving money to his sister.
