Politics

Donald Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for the $130,000 in hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

The Fair Representation Act has been re-introduced in Congress. This bold solution can stop gerrymandering and make Congress work for every American. 

The Fair Representation Act can solve partisan gerrymandering, make every congressional district competitive, and encourage politicians to represent all of us instead of just their base. It does this by combining three reforms: 

• Multi-member districts. In three- or five-member districts, nearly every voter will elect a candidate they support. Voters like Massachusetts Republicans and Oklahoma Democrats will be represented in Congress. Gerrymandering will become nearly impossible.

• Ranked choice voting for all U.S. House and Senate elections. RCV frees voters to support their favorite candidates, and encourages candidates to reach out to more voters for second-choice support. When RCV is used in multi-member districts, it is a form of proportional representation.

• Uniform rules for congressional redistricting 

The Fair Representation Act can be passed without a constitutional amendment. It truly has the potential to transform our political system and create a more inclusive and deliberative government which respects and empowers all voices.

President Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday that he will continue to lead the Spanish government, after five days of speculation about his future.

Last week, Sánchez announced that he would cancel all his official engagements after a court opened an initial investigation into his wife, Begoña Gómez, over accusations of influence peddling.

Sánchez, who has been in power since 2018, called the accusations a harassment campaign orchestrated by right-wing media.

“My wife and I know that this smear campaign will not stop, we have been suffering from it for 10 years,” Sánchez said. “We can handle it,” he added.

His decision last week to take time away from office to reflect on whether he would continue to lead the government came as a surprise even to people in his own Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE).

The accusations against Begoña Gómez were presented by the organization Manos Limpias, led by a man linked to the extreme right named Miguel Bernad.

The complaint

The complaint admitted by a court in Madrid against Begoña Gómez states that "taking advantage of her relationship with the president of the government, she would have recommended or endorsed by letter of recommendation with her signature to businessmen who bid for public tenders."

The document also points out that one of the companies that obtained public funds organized years later a master's degree in a university program that she directs and that another of them, the airline Air Europa, agreed to allocate funds for an innovation center in Africa that was also charge of Sánchez's wife.

When the complaint was made known, the president assured that his wife will defend herself in court against "facts as apparently scandalous as they are inconsistent."

On Thursday, the Madrid prosecutor's office asked that the investigation be archived due to lack of evidence.

Manos Limpias also acknowledged that the allegations could be incorrect because they were based on online newspaper articles, one of which has already been proven false.

Manos Limpias has gained notoriety by filing judicial complaints about alleged cases of political corruption that have frequently ended up being archived.

In his speech on Monday, which lasted about 10 minutes, Sánchez thanked the messages of support he received, which, he said, weighed on his decision to continue in the government.

He also ruled out that his five-day “reflection” period was a strategy. He noted that he decided to stop out of “conviction”, in order to change the course of politics in Spain.

And he said: “It's about deciding what kind of society we want to be. Our country needs this reflection. We have been letting mud contaminate our public life for too long.”

Sánchez emphasized that his decision "is not a full-stop."

"It's a paragraph, I guarantee it."

If Sánchez had resigned, he would have become the first president to leave office in the middle of a term since 1981, when Adolfo Suárez did so.

There are always two sides of the story.

The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Wednesday the suspension of his public activities to consider his possible resignation from office after a Madrid court accepted a complaint against his wife, Begoña Gómez, for a possible traffic crime. of influences.

In an open letter to citizens, Sánchez stated: “I need to stop and reflect. "I urgently need to answer the question of whether it is worth it, whether I should continue leading the Government or give up this honor."

The leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) attributes the complaint against his wife to “an operation of harassment and demolition” of the “right and extreme right” with the aim of making him “faint politically and personally by attacking” his wife.

And he points to his opposition rivals on the right of the political arc, the leader of the conservative Partido Popular, Alberto Núñez-Feijoo; and the far-right Vox, Santiago Abascal, as “necessary collaborators” of a campaign that seeks to “dehumanize and delegitimize the political adversary through complaints that are as scandalous as they are false.”

Sánchez assured in the letter that she published on her X social network account that she "lives helplessly with the mud that is spread over her day in and day out" and announced that she will appear next Monday to announce her decision regarding her continuity in the post.

The content of the complaint

The complaint admitted by the Investigative Court Number 41 of Madrid against Begoña Gómez states that, "taking advantage" of her relationship with the President of the Government, she would have recommended or endorsed by letter of recommendation with her signature to businessmen who bid for public tenders." .

The letter also points out that one of the companies that obtained public funds organized years later a master's degree in a university program that she directs and that another of them, the airline Air Europa, agreed to allocate funds for an innovation center in Africa that was also at the same time. charge of Sánchez's wife.

The Spanish president assured that his wife will defend herself in court against “facts that are as apparently scandalous as they are inconsistent.”

The complaint was filed by the Colectivo de Funcionarios Públicos Manos Limpias, an organization often involved in controversy because its founder is a former far-right militant and which has gained notoriety by filing judicial complaints about alleged cases of political corruption that have frequently finished archived.

In the case of Begoña Gómez, the investigating judge Juan Carlos Peinado has so far limited himself to ordering the opening of proceedings and summoning as witnesses the directors of the media that have disseminated the journalistic publications on which the complaint is based, some with an editorial line very critical of the Pedro Sánchez government.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the Partido Popular, the main opposition force, accused Sánchez of “dereliction of duties” for announcing that he is taking a few days until Monday to decide whether to continue in office.

"If you have nothing to fear, why don't you explain?" Feijóo asked him, who also reproached him for what he considered an attempt to "victimize" himself.

The support of the independentists

Hours before Sánchez's letter was made public, the PP had demanded explanations from him in Parliament, to which the president of the government responded by saying that "on a day like today and after the news that I have learned, despite everything I continue believing in the justice of my country".

Spanish media reported that Sánchez had left Parliament this Wednesday heading to his Madrid residence visibly upset.

Sánchez's decision to suspend his public events comes at a tense time for the PSOE, ahead of the European Parliament elections in June and elections in the Catalonia region next month.

Sánchez was precisely due to participate this Thursday in the start of the socialists' campaign in Barcelona ahead of the Catalan elections on May 12.

The Spanish president managed to be sworn back into office a few months ago with the support of two Catalan separatist parties, which agreed to give him their votes in exchange for an amnesty for those accused and convicted of the independence process in Catalonia that culminated in a referendum of independence in October 2017.

Without the support of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), he would not have been able to remain in power.

Opposition parties are outraged by the amnesty, which also means that former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont can run in the May 12 elections, seven years after he escaped from justice by moving to Belgium.

Puigdemont still faces a terrorism case, but believes the amnesty will allow him to return to Spain.

Google Translate

A special State Department panel told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S. should restrict arms sales to Israeli military units that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses. He has not taken any action.

A 49-year-old man has been arrested. Imanol Pradales leaves the hospital and attends the debate on Basque television with the other six candidates for 'lehendakari'

A person has attacked the PNV lehendakari candidate, Imanol Pradales, with pepper spray. The attack took place after seven thirty in the afternoon this Tuesday, when Pradales was leaving the rally he had given in the Biscayan town of Barakaldo to go to the ETB headquarters. Pradales has been treated at the Cruces hospital and is currently heading to Basque public television, where he plans to participate starting at 10:15 p.m. tonight in the electoral debate with the rest of the candidates for the Lehendakaritza.

The attack on Pradales was recounted at the beginning of his speech by the president of the PNV EBB, Andoni Ortuzar, at that same electoral event. As he explained, when the lehendakari candidate "was leaving to prepare for the ETB debate, a person approached him and sprayed him with pepper spray and they had to take him to Cruces to clean his eyes."

The Ertzaintza, minutes later, confirmed that the attack was carried out by a 49-year-old man who is in custody. The individual threw pepper spray at Pradales when he was going to get into the car that was going to take him to the Basque television headquarters in Bilbao, next to the San Mamés football field. A companion of Pradales has also been affected by the attack and has required medical assistance.

Although Ortuzar has called to "not worry" about Pradales' condition, he has shared his concern about these events with the supporters present at the rally. "We don't know what it is, but in any case, I think that this type of behavior, this type of events, has to lead us as a society to reflect on whether all of this that we are experiencing, of stretching, of tension, of creating division , to create tension, is the way for a society like the Basque one. Of course, in the opinion of the PNV, no, that is not our way," he stated.

The PP candidate for Lehendakaritza, Javier de Andrés, has expressed his "most resounding and energetic condemnation" of the attack suffered by his electoral rival. "The condition of Imanol Pradales is pending after the pepper spray attack of which he was a victim this afternoon. I trust that he will be perfectly well as soon as possible. My most resounding and energetic condemnation," Javier de Andrés wrote on social networks.

The President of the Government has expressed himself in the same sense. "I want to convey all my support and solidarity to Imanol Pradales. In democracy there is no room for aggression. Never. To anyone. I wish him to recover soon so that I can continue with the final stretch of the electoral campaign," Pedro Sánchez wrote in a message distributed on social networks.

The ad was released hours after Trump said he believes abortion laws should be left to the states, sidestepping the national ban some of his supporters want.
Link to video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wInNjr_9D28

The future of the Royals and Chiefs in Kansas City was thrown into question Tuesday when residents of Jackson County voted down a sales tax measure that would have helped to fund a new downtown ballpark along with major renovations to Arrowhead Stadium.

Despite a widening rift with the Israeli government, the Biden administration continues to authorize the transfer of 2,000-pound bombs and other weapons

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.

The development underscores that while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war’s conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

The Israeli government declined to comment on the authorizations.

(...)

In what may be some of the most horrifying footage yet from the extremist forced-birth movement, undercover video from Hood County, Texas Democrats Chair Adrienne Quinn Martin shows several Hood County Republican officials attending a presentation by Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX), a group that advocates for the death penalty for abortion and IVF, including for pregnant minors.

Hood County Constable Scott London, Hood County GOP Chair Steve Biggers and Hood County GOP Chair candidate Greg Harrell are seen at a meeting featuring AATX hosted by the group True Texas Project, which has been labeled as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and has ties to white nationalist Nick Fuentes. True Texas Project has hosted events with Ted Cruz and disgraced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

AATX also advocates for the outlawing of contraception and abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Scott London and Steve Harrell, along with multiple other Texas Republicans, have signed an AATX pledge to outlaw abortion in all cases.

evening at New York City’s iconic Radio City Music Hall, US President Joe Biden, flanked by his predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton

The vast majority of Americans believe democracy, despite its problems, is the best system of government. But a nationwide poll from Florida Atlantic University shows that far fewer younger voters …

Crossposting with OP's permission:

https://kbin.social/m/memes@lemmy.ml/t/918772/It-just-gets-worse-the-more-you-read#entry-comment-5869680

Crossposting with OP's permission:

https://kbin.social/m/memes@lemmy.ml/t/918772/It-just-gets-worse-the-more-you-read#entry-comment-5869680

Explore the impact of Trump’s looming deadline on his real estate empire and presidential campaign. Understand the political implications

New York’s Attorney General’s office has initiated legal proceedings in Westchester County, Manhattan DA, Trump Hush Money Case, Criminal Trial,

n a different display of American power, over 1,000 US troops are set to depart from the east coast on Tuesday. Their mission: to construct a vast flo

Today's latest news covers events, accidents, crime, law, unique news, politics, viral stories, celebrity gossip, and special coverage in Indonesia an

On 11 and 12 January 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). On 11 January, South Africa presented its case and on 12 January, Israel staged its defence.

As part of its defence, the Israeli team presented visual material, including maps, videos, images, and annotated diagrams. We have sourced the elements of evidence from the recording of the Israeli legal team’s presentation at the ICJ as found on the United Nations website.

We found eight instances where the Israeli legal team misrepresented the visual evidence they cited, through a combination of incorrect annotations and labelling, and misleading verbal descriptions. These instances are presented and explained in this report.

Our study also reveals that the Israeli legal team presented single instances of alleged Palestinian military use of civilian infrastructure as blanket justifications for the systematic and widespread attacks on civilians, shelters, schools, and hospitals.

(...)

The group that hacked the Atlanta-area government websites claims it has Trump documents that could affect the 2024 presidential election.

The new map in New York, which will be at the center of the fight for the House majority, comes after Democrats rejected the lines drawn by a bipartisan committee.

Mitch McConnell says he'll step down as Senate Republican leader in November.

Jon Stewart weighs in on the war in Gaza and offers up a solution for ending the conflict.

The decision is not a surprise. McDaniel previously said she'd step down after the South Carolina primary, which was held Saturday.