OEIS Private Investigator: Zambia has reportedly initiated a process to put a synthetic intelligence framework and is taking part with the Tony Blair Institute to formulate a synthetic intelligence technique. Sarah Luyele Njamu talked about Zambia can leverage AI for financial order, improved healthcare, enhanced education, and sustainable model. Zambia Revising Cyber Security and Crime Law The Zambian authorities has[…[…
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Examine the forefront of digital research in our Latest News & Blog. Study expert analyses, technological advancements, and key industry insights that keep you informed and prepared in the ever-evolving world of digital forensics.
Private investigator for cheating spouse:
Each few months, the web explodes with news about Bryan Johnson – the tech entrepreneur who once had his son’s plasma infused along with his blood in an strive to lengthen his absorb life.
Provided you might per chance well presumably also absorb ample time and money, a protracted-distance prepare race is with out doubt one of many most delicious techniques to poke. Staring at the nation roll by, from an opulent prepare car can the truth is feel almost cinematic – no longer to roar there’s a obvious satisfaction in luminous that rail poke is more environmentally sound than its choices.
A Connecticut mansion once owned by gentle President Donald Trump and his first spouse, Ivana, offered for $31.5 million this week after occurring-and-off the precise estate market for 15 years.
It’s a legend as worn as time: you exit on a Friday night along with your buddies and belief to absorb correct one drink, but things rating carried away and the subsequent morning your checking fable steadiness is a lot decrease than expected.
Components 1 followers will almost at the moment absorb the quite a bit of to absorb a fraction of racing historical past – for the low payment of $15 million.
A Ferrari (RACE) pushed by seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher, in the end of his remaining season, will almost at the moment scramble up for sale at RM Sotheby’s in Contemporary York. While the auction condo has no longer released a public rate estimate, experts await the automobile will pull in tens of millions, in response to a yarn from Planet F1.
Shopping for the phrases “Erewhon haul” on TikTok will generate two things: a complete bunch of hundreds of results and – for folks that are both on-pattern and under 30 – crude phases of envy.
While the climate getting colder brings forth many unfavorable traits, fancy communicable disease, heating bills, and shorter days, one of autumn’s unmitigated delights is discovering worn cash that’s been lingering in your coat pockets for months on stay.
Each week, Quartz highlights the most opulent precise estate listings all around the nation. These properties feature important views, enviable locations, and extravagant services — and they’re all available on the market.
With the holiday season almost upon us, more and more American citizens are seeking a time out the achieve they’ll explore the sights and rating some shopping done.
Constant with poke tag Away Holidays, searches absorb spiked for “shopping cities” and “very most life like cities for shopping.” The company compiled a checklist of the high U.S. cities for shopping followers the utilization of information aspects fancy the form of retail stores, restaurants, stores, and cultural attractions. It also looked at how necessary a taxi bills in each metropolis, how true it’s to plod around, and the diagram many three-superstar or above accommodations it has.
Each week Quartz highlights the upcoming and ongoing gross sales at auction houses internationally. Among the items readily available are works of art, historical artifacts, and pa custom memorabilia that collectors won’t desire to fail to value. While these forms of objects scramble for tens of millions, others are concurrently more cost effective and unforgettable.
Oeisdigitalinvestigator.com:
WASHINGTON —
Russia, China and Iran are extra and additional extra relying on criminal networks to steer cyberespionage and hacking operations in opposition to adversaries comparable to the US, per a record on digital threats printed Tuesday by Microsoft.
The increasing collaboration between authoritarian governments and criminal hackers has worried national safety officials and cybersecurity consultants. They sigh it represents the extra and additional extra blurred traces between actions directed by Beijing or the Kremlin geared toward undermining opponents and the illicit actions of groups usually extra attracted to financial produce.
In one instance, Microsoft’s analysts chanced on that a criminal hacking neighborhood with hyperlinks to Iran infiltrated an Israeli dating yelp and then tried to promote or ransom the deepest knowledge it obtained. Microsoft concluded the hackers had two motives: to embarrass Israelis and assemble money.
In yet another, investigators known a Russian criminal network that infiltrated extra than 50 electronic devices feeble by the Ukrainian military in June, it appears to be like trying for salvage entry to and recordsdata that would back Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There changed into no glaring financial motive for the neighborhood, with the exception of for any fee they’ll possess obtained from Russia.
Marriage of convenience
For countries comparable to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, teaming up with cybercriminals provides a wedding of convenience with advantages for all facets. Governments can enhance the amount and effectiveness of cyber actions without added cost. For the criminals, it provides original avenues for profit and the promise of government protection.
“We’re seeing in every of these countries this pattern toward combining nation-yelp and cybercriminal actions,” said Tom Burt, Microsoft’s vice president of buyer safety and belief.
To this level there would possibly be no proof suggesting that Russia, China and Iran are sharing sources with every other or working with the identical criminal networks, Burt said. But he said the increasing exercise of non-public cyber “mercenaries” presentations how far The usa’s adversaries will streak to weaponize the on-line.
Microsoft’s record analyzed cyber threats between July 2023 and June 2024, how criminals and international countries exercise hacking, spear phishing, malware and other techniques to present salvage entry to and preserve a watch on over a diagram’s blueprint. The firm says its possibilities face extra than 600 million such incidents every day.
Russia centered mighty of its cyber operations on Ukraine, attempting to enter military and government programs and spreading disinformation designed to undermine toughen for the war amongst its allies.
Ukraine has replied with its own cyber efforts, including one last week that knocked some Russian yelp media outlets offline.
US elections focused
Networks tied to Russia, China and Iran possess moreover focused American voters, the utilization of faux internet sites and social media accounts to unfold erroneous and deceptive claims about the 2024 election. Analysts at Microsoft remember the assessment of U.S. intelligence officials who sigh Russia is targeting the selling campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, while Iran is working to oppose frail President Donald Trump.
Iran has moreover hacked into Trump’s marketing campaign and sought, unsuccessfully, to ardour Democrats in the topic topic. Federal officials possess moreover accused Iran of covertly supporting American protests over the war in Gaza.
Russia and Iran will likely trudge the tempo of their cyber operations targeting the U.S. as election day approaches, Burt said.
China, in the meantime, has largely stayed out of the presidential trudge, focusing its disinformation on down-ballotraces for Congress or yelp and native yelp of labor. Microsoft chanced on networks tied to Beijing moreover proceed to home Taiwan and other countries in the region.
Denials from all events
In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said allegations that China partners with cybercriminals are erroneous and accused the U.S. of spreading its own “disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats.”
In a observation, spokesperson Liu Pengyu said that “our arena is constant and determined. China firmly opposes and combats cyberattacks and cybertheft in all forms.”
Russia and Iran possess moreover rejected accusations that they’re the utilization of cyber operations to home American citizens. Messages left with representatives of those three countries and North Korea were not returned Monday.
Efforts to disrupt international disinformation and cyber capabilities possess escalated alongside with the threat, however the anonymous, porous nature of the on-line usually undercuts the effectiveness of the response.
Federal authorities not too long ago announced plans to know hundreds of internet yelp domains feeble by Russia to unfold election disinformation and to toughen efforts to hack frail U.S. military and intelligence figures. But investigators on the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab chanced on that sites seized by the federal government can without problems and hastily get replaced.
Within in some unspecified time in the future of the Division of Justice seizing lots of domains in September, for instance, researchers spotted 12 original internet sites created to carry their yelp. One month later, they proceed to just.
Www.oeisdigitalinvestigator.com:
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.
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Here’s what else happened:
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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’s Republican-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.
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“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.
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“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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Here’s more on the court’s finding:
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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.
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In a statement following the vote, Joe Biden accused the GOP of indifference to the issue of border security:
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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.
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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.
“,”elementId”:”f2a50fa2-d467-443e-b471-0252cc7c76b8″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.BlockquoteBlockElement”,”html”:”
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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.
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“,”elementId”:”948219b0-ed92-4d53-86f3-ebeea999984c”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
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.
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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”:
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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.
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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:
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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
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2024
nn”},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
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.
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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:
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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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“,”elementId”:”c7b3639f-cbcf-46b7-84b4-bfe07af2e400″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.RichLinkBlockElement”,”prefix”:”Related: “,”text”:”Louisiana expected to classify abortion pills as controlled and dangerous substances”,”elementId”:”beac7a6e-0813-4067-948f-ee11e9c3c022″,”role”:”thumbnail”,”url”:”https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/23/mifepristone-misoprostol-abortion-pills-louisiana”}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1716488631000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”14.23 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1716490286000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”14.51 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1716489008000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”14.30 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”14.30″,”title”:”Louisiana Republicans move to tighten access to abortion medication”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 23 May 2024 16.32 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 23 May 2024 09.01 EDT”},{“id”:”664f75358f0891c9817ac0ef”,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
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, among others, to call for him to recuse himself from cases dealing with January 6. Alito has not commented on if he will do that.
“,”elementId”:”14b292dd-6cba-4e68-ac10-a79d252664e0″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
Here’s what else is going on:
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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.
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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.
“,”elementId”:”329e5638-177d-4934-83cf-843941acc2f2″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
“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.
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Here’s more:
“,”elementId”:”3c88c948-68cd-4477-b753-98c1c82cc656″},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.BlockquoteBlockElement”,”html”:”
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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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“,”elementId”:”ae326b36-baba-42d7-bd0a-5dfdb7480b42″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:true,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1716483065000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”12.51 EDT”,”blockLastUpdated”:1716483598000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”12.59 EDT”,”blockFirstPublished”:1716483380000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”12.56 EDT”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”12.56″,”title”:”Senate Democrats launch investigation into Trump’s reported offer to oil executives of regulatory rollback in exchange for donations”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Thu 23 May 2024 16.32 EDT”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Thu 23 May 2024 09.01 EDT”},{“id”:”664f59248f083be58d8ea379″,”elements”:[{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
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.
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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:
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.@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
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2024
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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A second provocative flag linked to Jan. 6 was flown at a home of the Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito. https://t.co/BuXufAjOgJ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 23, 2024
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Among those who have flown it is Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who flew the flag outside his Capitol office.
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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.
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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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Good morning, US politics blog readers.
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Conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito flew 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.
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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 two cases dealing with access to abortion that came after the court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022 – with an opinion Alito authored.
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Here’s what else is going on today:
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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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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 Biden called “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, among others, 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’s Republican-dominated legislature moved to restrict abortion medication – which the Biden campaign blamed on Trump.
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:
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.
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
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2024
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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
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 23, 2024
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.
Donald Trump did this. https://t.co/DytQ0V04YD
— Lauren Hitt (@LaurenHitt) May 23, 2024
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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.
Donald Trump did this. https://t.co/DytQ0V04YD
— Lauren Hitt (@LaurenHitt) May 23, 2024
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:
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.
Read the full article here (pay wall).
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, among others, 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.
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
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) May 23, 2024
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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
— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) May 23, 2024
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.
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