Democrat voters torch Bragg for ‘tragic’ Trump indictment as crime soars: ‘Worst prosecutor in America’
Democrat voters are pushing back against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over the indictment of Donald Trump, as he continues to face bipartisan scrutiny surrounding the strength of his case against the former president.
Trump was arraigned at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He was formally indicted by a grand jury last week.
Amid the fallout over the unparalleled indictment, Bragg has faced extensive condemnation from both sides of the political aisle, with critics accusing him of weaponizing the law for political purposes.
PROTESTERS GET PHYSICAL OUTSIDE NYC COURTHOUSE BEFORE TRUMP ARRAIGNMENT
Democrat voter Sammy Ravelo, who is also a former police officer, ripped Bragg for dedicating DA resources to the case against Trump during “Fox & Friends,” all while crime continues to cripple Big Apple streets.
“My whole thing is they found the worst prosecutor in America to prosecute Trump because Alvin Bragg would not prosecute a Black on Black crime or Latino-Latino crime… He’ll set those guys free,” Ravelo told Ainsley Earhardt on Wednesday. “In the meantime, he goes after a former president.”
“This is a tragedy for America right now. We should not be celebrating,” he continued.
The indictment, which hinged on Bragg’s years-long investigation of the former president, roots itself in alleged hush-money payments made before the 2016 presidential election.
These include the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 payment made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both women were paid for their silence on alleged affairs with Trump – affairs Trump has repeatedly denied.
TRUMP TO BE ARRAIGNED TUESDAY WITHOUT HANDCUFFS, SOURCES SAY
Those payments had been investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and by the Federal Election Commission.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the Daniels payment in 2019. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.
“I think we’re concentrating on the wrong thing and that this may backfire,” Ravelo said later in the show.
Marissa Caro-Cortese, another Democrat voter, echoed Ravelo’s sentiment. She argued that although she is “not a fan” of the former president, she was “expecting more” with the charges.
“Enough is enough already,” she said. If we’re going to start pinpointing politicians for all of their business affairs, looking deeper into things that they’ve done in the past, we need to investigate all of them. He’s not the first person who’s done this.”
“Again, I’m not defending him. I would never defend President Trump, but I feel like there’s a lot of distraction going on, and we need to just get away with this and focus on the real issue,” she continued.
Despite the previous decisions opting against pursuing the case, Bragg said his office obtained “additional evidence” that altered the investigation’s trajectory.
“We have a distinct and strong, I would say, profound independent interest in New York state,” Bragg said during a post-arraignment press conference Tuesday. “This is the business capital of the world. We regularly do cases involving false business statements. The bedrock, the basis, for business integrity and a well-functioning business marketplace is true and accurate recordkeeping. That’s the charge that brought here: falsifying New York state business records.”
Nonetheless, his critics have been quick to note what many call a double standard on Bragg’s handling of violent criminals vs. the former president.
Last year, more than half of felony arrests were downgraded to misdemeanors under Bragg’s watch, according to the FOX BrainRoom. This was a 13% spike from the year before.
Additionally, only half of felony cases resulted in a conviction last year, which is an 18% reduction from the year before.
Dominick Ciccarelli, an independent voter, accused the district attorney of being motivated by politics, arguing everyday Americans care more about other issues facing their families.
“Alvin Bragg has spent his entire career keeping criminals out of jail, so it’s impossible for me to believe that this is not politically driven,” Ciccarelli said. “The American people care about hush money with Stormy Daniels just as much as they care about Bill Clinton and Paula Jones’s sexual harassment settlement cases.”
“What the American people care about is presidents becoming richer during their presidencies and becoming presidents, and maybe political figures, to line their own pockets,” he continued. “And America really, I think, is grateful for Trump for putting America first and pushing hard for America and coming out almost less wealthy than he did when he came in because he sacrificed… his personal life supporting the country.”
Trump is not due in court again until December.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Ukraine updates: Poland pledges gear as Zelenskyy visits
Visiting Warsaw, Ukraine’s president hinted that Kyiv’ forces could pull out of the battleground city of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Russia’s Vladimir Putin had harsh words for the US and EU envoys in Moscow. DW has the latest.
Forest Admin launches cloud version of its low-code internal tool builder
French startup Forest Admin is launching a cloud-based version of its product. The company helps you create flexible back-end admin panels for operations teams. Essentially, Forest Admin helps development teams spend less time on back office tools so that they can focus on the actual product.
With the cloud version, companies just have to integrate the service with their own SQL database. After that, they can start using Forest Admin to manage their business.
“The onboarding is very similar to business intelligence tools,” Forest Admin co-founder and CEO Sandro Munda told me. But BI tools mostly fetch data so that it can be transformed, analyzed, compiled into quarterly reports and reused in business planning meetings.
Forest Admin is all about interacting with your product’s data. Companies can also integrate the admin panel with third-party services like Stripe, Mixpanel and Intercom. Forest Admin users can then trigger actions and create workflows with different levels of permission in the company.
Unlike other internal tool builders, such as Retool, Forest Admin is focused on admin panels exclusively. It isn’t designed to be an all-in-one internal tool builder because sophisticated services also tend to be complex.
For instance, a fintech company could use Forest Admin to review and validate documents and make sure it complies with KYC and AML regulation (‘know your customer’ and ‘anti-money laundering’) — Qonto is one of the startup’s biggest customers with 2,000 people using Forest Admin. An e-commerce company could also use Forest Admin to refund customers or order an item once again in case it’s been lost.
In addition to centralizing all your data, a tool like Forest Admin also makes it easier to interact with your data. Companies can filter their user base and create segments, update and delete records and more.
Currently, Forest Admin customers install a component on their servers. This agent can read your data and makes it accessible through an API. Forest Admin hosts the front-end interface on its own servers. When customers connect to their admin panels, Forest Admin fetches information from the component that is installed on your infrastructure.
With the new cloud version, it greatly lowers the barrier to entry as you don’t have to install Forest Admin’s component on your servers. With the right firewall rules and tunneling software, your database should remain secure. “There’s no data duplication, you make changes on your database directly,” Munda said.
“Our goal is really to attract a new segment of customers,” he added. Previously, you needed to integrate Forest’s agent in your own application. If a company is already using high-level cloud services exclusively, they couldn’t use Forest Admin before the release of the cloud-based version.
Many operations-driven companies already use Forest Admin, such as fintech, marketplace, mobility and healthcare companies. “We are close to profitability but it isn’t what we’re aiming for right now,” Munda said. And the cloud product should help when it comes to bringing more revenue.
Forest Admin launches cloud version of its low-code internal tool builder by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch
Christian mother sues state for denying adoption over her gender beliefs
An Oregon mother of five claims her religious beliefs on gender barred her from adopting a pair of siblings in her state, and now she’s taking to the courts to fight for her First Amendment rights.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/05/jessica-bates-sues-oregon-for-denying-adoption-over-gender-beliefs/
As GOP sticks with Donald Trump and his felony charges, Democrats keep winning elections
While former President Donald Trump was being arraigned, Americans were making it clear they’re not buying what Trump or the Republicans are selling.
Eurythmics star Dave Stewart’s daughter quits ‘American Idol’
A fan-favorite contestant on the current season of “American Idol” gave an emotional goodbye to the show.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/entertainment/kaya-stewart-american-idol/index.html
Brain teaser: Can you find 5 lemons hidden in the chick flock?
A graphic artist from Hungary is testing the world’s attention to detail with a new digital seek-and-find brain teaser, and this time it’s all yellow.
Gergely Dudás, of Budapest, shared the visual puzzle with Fox News Digital just in time for Easter 2023. The seek-and-find puzzle depicts five lemons hidden in a flock of yellow-feathered chicks.
Each of the illustrated citrus fruits seemingly blends in with the little hatchlings.
BRAIN TEASER: CAN YOU FIND 3 OWLS HIDDEN IN THIS COLORFUL CHICKEN FLOCK?
Some of the oblong birdies have been accessorized with colorful scarves, neckties, hats and glasses. A few are even holding items between their wings, including a wrapped present and a cup of juice.
Dudás previously shared his lemon and chick seek-and-find to his social media accounts on two separate occasions last year.
On Facebook, Dudás’ hidden lemons puzzle has generated over 1,610 reactions.
Most of the Facebook users who have left comments under each of Dudás’ lemon-chick puzzle have expressed that they’ve had a hard time finding the hidden fruit.
Some even argued that they think the lemons looked too similar to the little birds.
“Found them but didn’t [realize] those were the lemons and I kept looking,” one Facebook user wrote.
BRAIN TEASER: CAN YOU FIND 5 SEALS IN A HERD OF WALRUSES?
“Are you sure you put them in there?” another user questioned in jest. “Going to try again after my coffee lol.”
“Well, that one got me!!!! Had to cheat!!!” another user admitted.
Other Facebook users claim they had an easier time differentiating between the illustrated lemons and chicks.
“Found them,” one user wrote. “We should make lemonade”
BRAIN TEASER: CAN YOU FIND 3 WHITE CLOUDS HIDDEN IN A FLOCK OF FLUFFY SHEEP?
Need help finding all the lemons?
See the answer on Dudás’ website: dudolfsolutions.blogspot.com/2022/06/lemons-solution.html.
Dudás is a comic author and artist who has published multiple illustration books, including “Bear’s Springtime Book of Hidden Things” and “Bear’s Merry Book of Hidden Things: Christmas Seek-and-Find: A Christmas Holiday Book for Kids.”
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His seek-and-find artwork has also been featured on miniature prints, coffee mugs and various other pieces of merchandise.
Dudás has more than 167,000 dedicated followers on Facebook, more than 48,900 followers on Instagram, more than 8,300 followers on Twitter and hundreds of followers on Pinterest.
Want to try yet another brain teaser? Click here to check it out!
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/brain-teaser-can-find-5-lemons-hidden-chick-flock
‘Damage pretty widespread’: Multiple deaths, injuries reported in Missouri tornado. Live updates
Severe storms could also produce strong tornadoes and hail across parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas today.
Texas mom allegedly stabbed fiancé to death — then tried to stitch him up
Liliana Cervantes, 25, has been accused of stabbing her fiancé to death.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/05/texas-mom-liliana-cervantes-charged-with-stabbing-fiance-to-death/
Air Force loosens applicants’ body fat requirements amid US obesity surge, recruiting struggles
The Air Force is now allowing recruits to have a higher percentage of body fat as it struggles to find new members to join its ranks during a surge of obesity among American youth.
Male recruits are now permitted to have up to 26% body fat, up from the previous requirement of 20%, while females can have 36%, up from the previous max of 28%, according to Air Force Recruiting Service spokeswoman Leslie Brown.
“The Air Force is looking to open the aperture on qualifying a broader pool of young Americans for service in the Air Force. These changes bring the Air Force in line with DOD policy,” Brown told Fox News Digital in a statement. “While recruits will be allowed to join with greater body fat percentages, they will still be expected to meet the same fitness standards as everyone else to stay in the service. That means meeting the waist-to-height ratio requirement the Air Force announced in January and implemented this month.”
The changes come as Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in March the military service branch is expected to miss its active-duty recruiting goal by 10% this year, after dipping into a pool of delayed-entry applicants to meet last year’s goal, Military.com reported.
AIR FORCE NOT RELATABLE ENOUGH FOR ‘NOT PATRIOTIC’ GEN Z, RECRUITER SAYS
Brown says the new body fat standards are “just one of several initiatives being worked by a cross functional team to be able to reach a bigger pool of candidates without lowering our standards of recruiting the best Americans to serve our nation.
“We are recruiting today’s generation, not my generation who joined more than 30 years ago, where a tattoo may have been taboo but is now a societal norm,” she told Fox News Digital. “Or where youth now live a more sedentary lifestyle than before – we can take those new recruits and can promote physical fitness and overall healthier living decisions into their everyday routines as Airmen.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says the obesity issue among American youth is “impacting national security,” stating that just over one out of every three young adults aged 17-24 are too heavy to serve in the military.
“Among the young adults who meet weight requirements, only 3 in 4 report physical activity levels that prepare them for challenges in basic training,” it said.
ARMY EXPANDS PROGRAM FOR RECRUITS WHO DON’T MEET WEIGHT AND TEST REQUIREMENTS
The CDC estimates that 19% of active-duty service members had obesity in 2020, up from 16% in 2015.
As of 2018, 71% of young people in the U.S. would not be able to join the military if they wanted to, it also said.
In a statement posted on its website, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen Mark Herling said, “The military has experienced increasing difficulty in recruiting soldiers as a result of physical inactivity, obesity, and malnutrition among our nation’s youth.”
Brown told Fox News Digital that the new changes will allow up to 100 more recruits to join the Air Force each month.
The Army, another service branch dealing with recruiting struggles, announced in January the expansion of a pre-basic training course that lets candidates enlist who do not meet the weight and aptitude requirements.
“The Future Soldier Prep Course is giving young Americans who want to serve the chance to do so by helping them not only meet our standards but, in many cases, rise above them,” Gen. James McConville, the Army’s top officer, said of the expanded program.
Fox News’ Michael Lee contributed to this report.