John Legend calls Megyn Kelly ‘desperate’ after rant about Chrissy Teigen’s WHCD dress
Megyn Kelly said Chrissy Teigen looked ‘like she was literally going to the coronation’ at the White House Correspondents Dinner. John Legend disagrees.
Biden nominee backs US-funded border wall in Jordan ‘to provide physical security’
President Biden’s nominee to serve as U.S. ambassador to Jordan said she supports U.S. funding to provide a border wall in the country, saying it provides the U.S. ally with “physical security.” And a Republican senator highlighted its contrast with the administration’s opposition to a wall at the U.S. southern border.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., in a Senate hearing asked nominee Yael Lempert about $150 million provided to Jordan for border security in the fiscal year 2023 omnibus package, funding that is partially continued in the 2024 budget request. Lempert said she supports that request.
“In fact, the omnibus last year provides for at least $150 million for border security in Jordan. It’s a large amount of taxpayer dollars. And if you think about the purpose of this, it’s to provide physical security, to keep people from illegally crossing into Jordan, isn’t that correct?” Hagerty asked.
BORDER PATROL CHIEF SAYS HE DISAGREES WITH BIDEN MOVE TO STOP WALL CONSTRUCTION
“It is to provide physical security, to stop drug smugglers, to deal with the threat of Jordan’s neighbor, Syria. Obviously, the conflict there continues, and it’s a dangerous neighborhood,” Lempert replied.
Hagerty asked if there is a belief that “this sort of funding is important and that this sort of physical security is effective.”
“In the Jordanian context? I do believe that that is correct, senator,” the nominee responded.
Hagerty then contrasted her stance and the position of the administration with its decision to largely halt border wall construction at the southern border in early 2021 even as the administration faced a historic migrant crisis at its own southern border.
“I just think it’s an important lesson for us to learn, as Americans, that we’re spending United States taxpayer dollars to support border security in a country that we’re trying to build stronger relations with,” Hagerty said. “I think we ought to be learning a lesson ourselves because there’s not a penny in the president’s budget to support our own border security here.”
IMMIGRATION HAWKS BACK ‘FORCEFUL AND SERIOUS’ GOP BORDER SECURITY PACKAGE
While the budget does include funding for Customs and Border Protection, including technology, staffing and processing, Republicans have argued it does not do enough to secure the border, including the failure to build additional wall.
Republicans in the House recently unveiled legislation that would increase Border Patrol agents by 3,000 and restart funding for the border wall. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has accused Republicans of attempting to cut CBP funding with their own proposed spending cuts.
The debate over the border wall, even within the administration, was on display in March when Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said he disagreed with the decision to stop construction of the wall at the southern border.
“I do not believe in a wall from sea to shining sea, but I do believe in infrastructure and barrier systems in concentrated areas, especially urban areas,” Ortiz said.
“And it’s always been our practice, from 2006 when I was an agent in charge in West Texas to now. But I also don’t agree that we should tear down a perfectly good barrier system to install something that is based upon requirements that we developed over the last few years.”
Ted Cruz challenger said it would’ve been ‘better’ if Second Amendment ‘had not been written’
A challenger to Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz said it would have been “better” if the Second Amendment “hadn’t been written.”
In a resurfaced video from 2018, Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, weighed in on the right to bear arms and said he did not believe the Second Amendment should have been written in the first place.
“Within the confines of the accurately applied Second Amendment, we can do everything we want to do, as far as regulating weapons and all that,” Allred said. “The Second Amendment does have, in the first sentence, in order to maintain a ‘well-regulated militia,’ and ‘the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'”
SEN. TED CRUZ LANDS HIS FIRST MAJOR DEMOCRATIC CHALLENGER IN 2024 RE-ELECTION BID
“And it’s two ideas there. The recent trend has only been to focus on the right to bear arms instead of the well-regulated militia part,” Allred continued in the video, which was first resurfaced by Breitbart. “So I just think we have to accurately apply it.”
“Would it be better if it had not been written? Of course. But there’s no chance that we’re going to repeal any of the Bill of Rights amendments,” the Texas Democrat said.
“I’m not just talking about politically, it wouldn’t happen. It’s not within the bounds of reality in this country,” he added. “But what we could do, I think, is there’s plenty of room within there to not allow people to have ‘weapons of war.'”
Allred’s campaign manager Paige Hutchinson told Fox News Digital, “Congressman Allred’s record on this is clear: He supports common-sense reforms and respects the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”
“He proudly supported Senator Cornyn’s bipartisan bill to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, which Ted Cruz voted against,” Hutchinson said. “A highly edited clip from six years ago is not in any way an accurate reflection of Allred’s position.”
Allred voted for Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn’s Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that was signed into law last year and bolstered states’ red flag laws, enhance background checks for gun buyers under 21, add penalties for some gun criminals and provide funding for a variety of health and mental health-related programs.
Cornyn’s bill also addresses the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which is a gap in federal law that means spousal domestic abusers can have gun rights taken away but not unmarried ones.
On Wednesday, Allred, a former NFL linebacker who later worked in President Obama’s administration before defeating Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in 2018 in Texas’s 32nd Congressional District, which includes parts of the city of Dallas and its northeastern suburbs, became the first major Democrat to jump into the Senate race against Cruz, who is running for a third six-year term representing Texas.
Allred’s campaign on Friday said it raised $2 million in the first 36 hours since launching his campaign, but while his $2 million haul is significant, the Texas Democrat will need to keep the aggressive pace up. Cruz began the cycle with $3.3 million in cash on-hand, while bringing in an additional $1.2 million in the first quarter of this year.
Cruz has become a Texas powerhouse in the Senate after his victory over former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, in 2018.
Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind and Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ted-cruz-challenger-said-better-second-amendment-not-written
Eight false Trump electors have accepted immunity deals, lawyer says
Eight Republican activists who falsely claimed to be legitimate presidential electors for Donald Trump have accepted immunity deals from the Atlanta-area district attorney investigating Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Kimberly Debrow, a lawyer for the false electors, revealed the arrangement — reached last month — in a court filing Friday, opposing a bid by District Attorney Fani Willis to disqualify her from representing the large group.
It’s the latest indication of Willis’ advancing investigation, which she recently revealed could result in charges — possibly against Trump himself and a slew of high-profile allies — as soon as July.
Trump and his inner circle orchestrated a plan for GOP electors in seven states he lost to sign documents claiming to be legitimate presidential electors. Those false electors became a component in a desperate last-ditch bid by Trump to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021. Citing the certificates signed by the false electors, Trump and a cadre of fringe attorneys claimed there was a conflict that only Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence could resolve on Jan. 6.
Ultimately, Pence refused to support the effort, claiming it was illegal and unconstitutional, and rejecting a pressure campaign to treat the false GOP electors as legitimate.
Dozens of false electors were subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 select committee as well as special counsel Jack Smith, who is mounting a similar criminal probe into Trump’s bid to subvert the election.
Not all of the false electors across the country were equally involved in Trump’s effort — and dozens have contended that they had no knowledge their signatures would be used as part of Trump’s Jan. 6 effort. Rather, they said they were advised that they were signing “contingent” certificates that would only be used if courts reversed Trump’s defeat. They argued that similar tactics were used in 1960, when Democrats signed contingent certificates amid a recount in Hawaii. (The recount ultimately reversed that state’s results and the contingent electors were counted.)
But some of the false electors were also state party chairs and key Trump allies who played larger roles in Trump’s bid to stay in power. Willis, who has previously indicated she considers all of the false electors “targets” of her investigation, has raised concerns that Debrow’s representation of 10 of the false electors could present a conflict if any of them testify against each other. Last month, Willis claimed that recent interviews with the false electors revealed incriminating evidence about one of them.
Debrow, in Friday’s filing, sharply rejected that contention and maintained that none of her clients believed they had done anything wrong. She is urging the judge presiding over the matter, Robert McBurney, to reject Willis’ attempt to disqualify her from the case.
Debrow accused Willis’ team of misleading the judge about the status of immunity discussions between the electors and the DA’s office and she indicated that the assistant DA leading the interviews had threatened to indict one of the electors after a tense exchange. Debrow said she recorded aspects of the exchange without the prosecutors’ knowledge.
McBurney previously rejected a bid by Willis to disqualify Debrow from representing numerous contingent electors but did require one of them, David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia GOP, to separate from the larger group. Shafer appeared to be more exposed to potential criminal charges than the others, McBurney ruled at the time.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/05/trump-false-electors-immunity-00095664
Posts misinterpret Minnesota bill that redefines sexual orientation Fact check
The bill wouldn’t protect pedophilia as a sexual orientation. An April 26 amendment says attraction to children isn’t protected by the bill.
SWAT team shoots, wounds Indiana woman’s 81-year-old attacker in barricade standoff
SWAT team members shot and wounded an 81-year-old eastern Indiana man who had barricaded himself inside a house after allegedly shooting a woman, police said Friday.
Charles R. Adams of Richmond was struck at least once by gunfire Thursday afternoon and was hospitalized with injuries not believed to be life-threatening, Indiana State Police said in a news release.
Richmond police who were called to the scene of a reported shooting found a 42-year-old woman with an apparent gunshot wound and non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
Officers determined that Adams, the suspected shooter, had barricaded himself in his residence next door, but he refused to communicate with officers and “reportedly fired a round at police,” police said.
After nearby homes were evacuated, SWAT teams from the state police, Richmond police and the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office tried to “peacefully” arrest Adams before eventually deploying chemical agents, police said.
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But when Adams “approached an opening and reportedly pointed a firearm at police,” five members of the state police SWAT team discharged their firearms, striking Adams at least once.
State police said the five state troopers have been placed on administrative leave, a routine step following police-involved shootings.
Detectives from the Indiana State Police Pendleton District are leading the investigation. When the investigation is complete, it will be turned over to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for review.
Richmond is located about 70 miles east of Indianapolis, near the Ohio border.
The Suburbs Are Pulling Us Apart
The Suburbs Are Pulling Us Apart
Authored by Guy Ciarrocchi via RealClear Wire,
My wife and I moved from Philadelphia to the western suburbs of Chester County for many reasons. The move offered us the best of all worlds. We would be living close enough to Philadelphia, but in even less time, we could be in rural Chester County, with its mushroom farms, farmer’s markets, and homemade foods and products. We could go back to South Philly to eat dinner on Passyunk Avenue, or choose to eat at a quiet country inn on a back road with no traffic lights – or even streetlights.
Our neighbors were a mix: some had lived here for decades, some had moved here from more rural communities, and some had come here, like us, from Philadelphia. For us, the suburbs were a bridge to different parts of Pennsylvania and the nation. The suburbs were both the melting pot and the patchwork quilt that is America. Our neighbors had gun racks and Volvos. We all seemed to enjoy our community and appreciate that we were made up of differing backgrounds. In a sense, it was the suburbs that were connecting all of us – and holding America together.
But something changed. I didn’t notice it until it had already happened – because it happened slowly.
I should’ve noticed it in the signs that started popping up in coffee shops. The occasional “speeches” being made by actors at community theaters before or after a show. The new magnets on cars. The impromptu conversations after Mass. The community blogs that were supposed to be about garage sales and advice on finding a plumber but that started sounding like a Sunday morning talk show – the kind where nobody really talks, they just yell and interrupt. We were coming apart.
Finally, I noticed it in our politics. Not just the changing election results but in what the campaigns were focused on, as reflected in candidate speeches, in palm cards, and on webpages.
Somewhere, over the last generation, the suburbs had become ground zero for every societal, cultural – and, ultimately, every political – problem in Pennsylvania and in our nation.
Think of the battles of just the last few years.
The biggest fights over Covid mandates took place in the suburbs – not in rural Pennsylvania, where most people went about their business. Not in Philadelphia, where many could walk to stores or order takeout or delivery, as they did frequently even before the lockdowns. In other words, not where culture is more unified.
The battles were among store-owners of pizza shops, diners, and barbershops and their neighbors, from Langhorne to West Chester. And in 2021 and 2022, the biggest battles came when worlds clashed. When people from more rural areas and those who had moved on from masking ventured into Wayne, Media, or Narberth to buy coffee and were greeted by baristas in masks, who gave them that look: “Why don’t you have a mask?”
And this was nothing compared to the battles over children and schools – not only concerning masks, but also “critical race theory,” sex education, curriculum, books in school libraries, and student bathrooms.
Not a week goes by without the media focusing on a suburban school district – Central Bucks, Perkiomen Valley, Tredyffrin/Easttown, West Chester, Southeast Delco, Great Valley, and Hatboro-Horsham. (And, in Virginia, most of America knows about the battles in Loudon County – the Chester County of the Washington, D.C. area.)
School board races now cost thousands of dollars to run and generate more interest and higher voter turnout than full-time, paying elected offices. (School board members are not paid in Pennsylvania.) School board meetings have become must-see TV – or must-avoid TV, depending on one’s tastes.
The suburbs, then, are no longer a cultural bridge. No longer a melting pot. No longer a patchwork of people and cultures, with mutual appreciation – or at least respect. They are now the flashpoint. It’s no wonder that politics has become so heated here. The political clashes are being driven by cultural clashes on deeply personal issues.
When it comes to elections, this is a problem for Republicans since they are currently the opposition party. The trouble is that many people have picked their party – their team – and are unlikely to switch easily. And in this polarized environment, they follow the lead of their party on most issues. And those still undecided politically may not take a favorable view of Republicans, seeing them as merely adversarial to the status quo.
For a long time, the suburbs helped keep America together. Now, it’s the suburbs that are pulling us apart – at rapid speed and high temperature.
As Pennsylvania – and America – becomes more suburban, it’s imperative that we find a way to lower that temperature. This is bigger than politics or elections. It’s about staying together as a nation.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 05/05/2023 – 18:20
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/suburbs-are-pulling-us-apart
Boxer Gervonta Davis avoids jail time, sentenced to 90 days house arrest for 2020 hit-and-run
Boxer Gervonta Davis, who just improved to 29-0, was sentenced to 90 days of home detention after he was charged with 14 counts from an alleged hit-and-run in November 2020.
Davis faced more than seven years in prison for the accident, which left four people injured. Along with the 90 days at home, he must serve 200 hours of community service.
Davis faced four counts of failing to return and remain at the scene of an accident involving a bodily injury. He also was charged with failing to report an accident, driving with a suspended/revoked license and failure to stop at a red light.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to four traffic violations in February.
This is not the first time Davis has been in legal trouble. The boxer is being sued for allegedly causing “multiple bodily injuries” after sucker-punching a parking attendant in a New York City garage in February.
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He also was arrested on domestic violence charges in December, but the accusations were dropped.
He was also charged with battery of his ex-girlfriend three years ago.
Last month, Davis defeated Ryan Garcia, who also was previously undefeated, with a seventh-round knockout at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
LSU adds Big East star Aneesah Morrow to powerhouse roster
Former DePaul forward Aneesah Morrow joined defending champ LSU’s roster on Friday.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/05/lsu-adds-big-east-star-aneesah-morrow-to-powerhouse-roster/
New Neptune Blue Hummer EV has an astronomical price
If the GMC Hummer EV is the alpha of electric trucks, then the new Omega Edition must be the end-all of them.
GMC has announced the new limited release option for both the Hummer EV pickup and SUV.
It’s an add-on to the top-of-the-line 3X grade that includes a signature Neptune Blue Matte paint inspired by the eighth planet and blacked-out badges and trim.
The Hummer EV’s development team took inspiration from GM’s work on the Apollo Program’s Lunar Roving Vehicle, and the trucks already have outer space-inspired design touches, including topographical maps of the moon.
FIRST GMC HUMMER EV SUV AUCTIONED FOR $500,000 AS PRODUCTION BEGINS
The Omega Edition also includes removable transparent roof panels owners can gaze at the stars through, unique 18-inch wheels and an external Kicker brand audio system built into the configurable MultiPro tailgate.
The Hummer EV’s Extreme Off-Road Package is standard and brings a 360-degree camera system that provides a few of what’s under the truck, extra underbody and rocker protection, and 35-inch Mud Terrain tires.
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Current reservation holders get first dibs at the Omega Edition, which has been priced at $139,995 for the 830 hp SUV and $149,995 for the 1,000 hp pickup.
GMC had only delivered 856 of the Hummer EV pickups since going on sale last year through this March, but deliveries of the SUV have since begun as the factory ramps up production and the company says it has over 90,000 reservations for the pair.
However, shipments of the Omega Edition trucks are not expected to begin until the first half of 2024.
https://www.foxnews.com/auto/neptune-blue-hummer-ev-astronomical