Category: NEWS
Republican ex-judge argued Trump engaged in insurrection, should be removed from Illinois primary ballot
A retired Republican judge is arguing that former President Donald Trump ought to be removed from Illinois’ primary ballot for allegedly engaging in an insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Former longtime Kankakee County Judge Clark Erickson, acting as hearing officer on voters’ challenge to the former president’s eligibility, issued the recommendation to the Illinois State Officers Electoral Board, which is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
Attorneys for Trump and citizens seeking to keep the Republican former president off the ballot presented their arguments before Erickson on Friday. The Illinois State Officers Electoral Board is expected to consider the recommendation on Tuesday.
Erickson’s 21-page recommendation concluded that a “preponderance of the evidence” presented proves that Trump engaged in insurrection.
But he said the election board can’t engage in the “significant and sophisticated constitutional analysis” required to remove Trump’s name before the March 19 primary. He said the decision should ultimately be left to the courts.
He likened the board’s attempt to resolve the constitutional question to “scheduling a two-minute round between heavyweight boxers in a telephone booth.”
Still, Erickson noted that even if the board disagrees with his reasoning, Trump’s name should be removed from the Illinois primary ballot.
Free Speech for People, which is leading the Illinois ballot effort, praised Erickson’s recommendation as “significant” but argued that Illinois law allows the board to make the ballot decision.
“We expect that the board and ultimately Illinois courts will uphold Judge Erickson’s thoughtful analysis of why Trump is disqualified from office, but — with the greatest respect — correct him on why Illinois law authorizes that ruling,” Ron Fein, legal director for the group, wrote in a Sunday statement.
The Illinois saga echoes similar efforts in several other states. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a historic Colorado Supreme Court ruling to remove Trump from that state’s ballot.
The case presents the high court with its first look at a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Air purifier credited for saving family during large apartment fire in Texas
After a two-alarm structure fire at a northwest Austin, Texas, apartment complex displaced 16 residents, one family was saved thanks to an air purifier.
The Aleman family tells Fox 7 Austin that they are thankful to have survived and are now trying to recover after losing their home and everything in it.
The fire happened in the early morning hours on January 18.
“I woke up to a loud, it sounded like an explosion, like phew, I didn’t know what it was, I really thought someone was breaking into my apartment at that point,” Jayd Aleman told Fox 7 Austin.
5 FIREFIGHTERS INJURED WHILE RESPONDING TO MULTI-BUILDING PITTSBURGH BLAZE
Aleman said that no smoke alarms went off but what did go off was their air purifier.
“It was like this moment of quiet, and we’re in this dark living room and all I can hear is my air purifier beeping, and it’s red, it’s reading 900, clean air, it reads around 10 to 15, so that’s extremely dirty, it was like beep beep beep, super loud,” Aleman said.
After realizing the magnitude of the situation, Aleman and her husband woke up their three children, called 911, and alerted their neighbors.
‘PLEASE HURRY’: 911 AUDIO CAPTURES PANIC, CONFUSION AMID FORT WORTH HOTEL EXPLOSION THAT INJURED 21
While they lost everything and are working to rebuild and recover from the disaster, Aleman said a new air purifier will be at the top of their list.
“We will buy another air purifier, and we will probably put one in every room,” Aleman said.
A GoFundMe page was created by a family friend to help alleviate the burden and costs of losing everything for the Aleman family, who are sleeping on mattresses on the floor at a sister property of their former apartment complex.
According to fire officials, the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
83 Million!?
83 Million!?
Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,
Donald Trump in furor stormed out of a New York courtroom for a while, in the defamation suit brought by author and dating/boyfriend/sex-advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
It was just settled against Trump for $83.3 million!
The Carroll suit was largely subsidized by Reid Hoffman the billionaire capitalist, and mega-donor to the Democratic Party and leftwing causes.
The subtext of Trump’s rage, aside from the outrageous monetary size of the defamation ruling, is that he was facing—and angered – a leftwing claimant, a quite hostile leftwing judge, and a leftwing New York jury.
The civil suit serves as a mere preview of four additional leftwing criminal prosecutions, leftwing judges, and leftwing juries to come – all on charges that would never had been filed if Trump either had not run for president or been a liberal progressive.
Yet here we are.
The E. Jean Carroll case is the most baffling of all five.
She, the alleged victim, did not remember even the year in which the purported sexual assault took place, nearly three decades ago. Observers have pointed out dozens of inconsistencies in her story.
It was never clear what were the preliminaries that supposedly (Trump denies meeting her) led both, allegedly, willingly to retreat together to a department store dressing room, where during normal business hours the alleged violence took place.
Moreover, the sexual assault complaint came forward decades post facto—and only after Trump was running for and then president.
Carroll eventually sued him for battery, but well after the statute of limitations had expired and thus the case seemed defunct.
Her claims of defamation injuries arise from being fired from her advice column job at ELLE magazine.
She claimed that Trump’s sharp denials and ad hominem retorts led to her career ruin. But the loss for anyone of a column at 76 does not seem such a rare occurrence, and the absence of a salaried job in one’s late seventies for four years does not seem to equate to a $83 million hit.
And note the allegation that her dispute with Trump led to her firing was strongly denied by the very magazine that cut her loose.
But then another strange thing happened. In 2022, a new law (“The Adult Survivors Act”) was passed in the New York legislature. It also post facto established a twelve-month window (beginning six months from the signing of bill) that permitted survivors of long ago alleged sexual assaults suddenly to sue the accused long-ago perpetrator—regardless of the previous statute of limitations.
That unexpected opening suddenly gave Carroll’s prior unsuccessful efforts a rebirth. And she quickly refiled with the help of arch-Trump hating billionaire Hoffman.
Yet the bill may have been introduced with Trump particularly in mind—given the legislator who introduced it, Brad Hoylman-Siga, was known as another Trump antagonist.
More interestingly, he had earlier introduced and had passed another Trump-targeted bill. That “TRUST” act had empowered particular federal Congressional committees to have access to the New York State once sealed tax returns of high-ranking government officials—such as Trump.
That bill’s generally agreed subtext was a green light for anti-Trump members of Congress to obtain legal access to Donald J. Trump’s tax returns.
So there is an eerie feeling that the New York legislature may have abruptly passed legislation that was aimed at the past conduct of Donald Trump but only after he entered the political arena.
While these are not quite bills of attainder, there is something unsettling if they are post facto laws aimed at targeting the most famous and controversial man in America and the leading candidate for the presidency.
In essence they were targeted statutes designed to make Trump’s prior legally unactionable behavior suddenly quite legally actionable.
Trump will be subject to such special treatment all summer and fall.
Prosecutors Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis will synchronize their court business for maximum effect.
Trump again will face leftwing prosecutors, judges, and juries on charges that are politically driven, involving alleged behavior that is either usually not criminalized or not to the same degree as Trump’s case. (Do we remember the nearly $375,000 federal fine belatedly leveled at an exempt Obama but only five years after his 2008 illegal garnering of, and not reporting, foreign campaign contributions?)
The stakes are higher each day as Trump closes in on the nomination and thus becomes the hope of half the country to end the Biden madness.
Somehow Trump will have to stay calm, give no opening to his legion of hostile prosecutors, while conducting a nonstop campaign against Biden (and for a while Hayley), and while fighting to keep his name on various state ballots.
So what we are witnessing is not even the extralegal efforts of Steele/Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie/DNC/Hillary Clinton in 2016, or the 2020 “Russian disinformation” ruse/change the voting laws/infuse half a billion dollars to absorb the work of the registrar machinations against Trump.
We are way beyond all that.
The legal system itself, hand-in-glove with leftwing politicos (compare campaign boasts of James and Willis, or prosecutorial visits to the January 6 committee and the White House) is turning the process of balloting and elections into an embarrassing farce.
Still, Trump will have to soldier on. He must stay controlled amid the tsunamis, not play into the hands of his accusers, and remember that he may soon be the only eleventh-hour hope to stop this mockery of American law, customs and traditions.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 01/28/2024 – 19:50
Japan says Moon lander ‘resumed operations’ after power restored
Japan’s Moon lander has resumed operations, the space agency said, indicating that power had been restored.
Feds caught Kaitlin Armstrong — woman convicted in love triangle murder of bicyclist — by luring her with an ad for yoga teachers: report
The Texas woman — who fled to Central America after fatally shooting professional cyclist Anna Moriah Wilson in May 2022 — was reportedly caught by the US Marshals after she responded to an ad the feds placed for a yoga instructor.
NJ man used device to steal $1,700 worth of fuel from a Wawa, authorities say
A New Jersey man was arrested last week after authorities say he manipulated a pump at a gas station in Delaware to steal over $1,700 in fuel.
North Korea says leader Kim oversaw test of submarine-launched cruise missiles
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test launch of a new strategic cruise missile from a submarine, state media said Monday, the latest tension-raising move by the nuclear-armed state.
Jason Kelce shares explicit message to Travis Kelce after Chiefs beat Ravens to reach Super Bowl LVIII
Travis Kelce is heading to his fourth Super Bowl in the last five seasons after the Kansas City Chiefs took down the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday.
And while everyone was looking for his interaction with Taylor Swift after the game, his older brother, Jason, was there to have an emotional embrace at M&T Bank Stadium.
Jason won’t be facing off against his brother again like last year’s Super Bowl, where the Kelces became the first pair of brothers to play in the game when Jason’s Philadelphia Eagles took the field against Travis’ Chiefs in Arizona.
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But Jason, wearing a Chiefs beanie and a yellow and red Hawaiian shirt, was spotted wrapping his arms around his brother and getting emotional as he gave him an explicit message for what to do next.
WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
“Finish this motherf—er,” Jason told his brother.
CHIEFS HEADING BACK TO SUPER BOWL AFTER BEATING RAVENS IN AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
How about it! F—, yeah, dog,” Travis responded. “Goddamn, I love you. I love you, big dog.”
Yet another Kelce brothers’ moment comes with at least one of them heading to the Super Bowl.
Travis was a main reason why the Chiefs were able to get another road playoff win after beating the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Divisional Round.
In the Buffalo game, Kelce scored twice and caught five passes for 75 yards to help his team’s cause. It was the first time since Week 11 of the regular season he got into the end zone.
Now, Travis has a scoring streak after making a one-handed grab on a throw from Patrick Mahomes to get the Chiefs in the end zone first in the AFC title game.
Jason wasn’t seen shirtless like he was in the bitter Buffalo cold last week when his brother scored, but you can bet he was loud in his family’s box with the rest of those rooting for Kansas City.
Travis finished with a perfect 11 catches on 11 targets for 116 yards with his score to lead the game in receiving.
The Chiefs would love to see that Mahomes-Kelce connection show its face yet again in the Super Bowl, which was the case against Jason and the Eagles in Super Bowl LVII. Travis scored the first touchdown in that game as well.
Pregnant woman rescued from rising Australian floodwaters by helicopter crew
An expecting mother has been flown to hospital after she was trapped in flood water while in labor.
North Korea tests submarine-launched cruise missiles, KCNA says
North Korea tested its new strategic cruise missiles for the second time in a week on Sunday, calling it a newly developed submarine-launched cruise missile, state media reported.