Trust in the judicial branch of the federal government has fallen by 20% since 2021, according to a new poll released by Gallup on Thursday.
The poll showed that only 47 % of respondents expressed “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the judicial branch, which includes the Supreme Court, 12 Circuit Courts of Appeal and 94 U.S. District Courts. It is the lowest trust score in the judiciary since Gallup began polling the question in 1972.
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Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that aid distributed in the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Ian should be “based on equity.”
“It is our lowest-income communities and communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues not of their own making—” Harris said before being interrupted by Priyanka Chopra Jonas at a Democratic National Committee Women’s Leadership Forum.
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For those who do not know who Ray Epps is and why he matters—and this includes most Democrats and many journalists—U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) served up a handy reference guide last week. Gosar did this in the form of a resolution of inquiry (ROI) directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over all documents relevant to the Epps case within 14 days.
“Multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C. on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building,“ Gosar explained. “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed.”
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The private consortium that reported election “misinformation” to tech platforms during the 2020 election season, in “consultation” with federal agencies, targeted several news organizations in its dragnet.
Websites for Just the News, New York Post, Fox News, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Epoch Times and Breitbart were identified among the 20 “most prominent domains across election integrity incidents” that were cited in tweets flagged by the Election Integrity Partnership and its collaborators.
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The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is appointing a special diplomat to oversee international animal and plant habitats for the first time in U.S. history.
The State Department appointed Monica Medina as the U.S. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources to solve the world’s intertwined biodiversity and water crises, according to a department media note. Medina will adopt an “all-of-government effort” to represent the interests of plants and animals abroad because the administration believes that such species are currently threatened by the “climate crisis.”
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In a House Financial Services committee hearing last week, Rep. Rashida Tlaib asked CEOs of major banks whether they would go along with her ESG agenda and commit to stop funding fossil fuels.
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All four of Virginia’s Republican congressmen voted against a continuing resolution to continue funding the government through December 16, 2022; the bill passed Friday with just 10 votes from Republicans nationally, sending the bill to President Joe Biden who signed the legislation the same day. In press releases, three of the Virginia Republicans criticized the bill for continuing Democratic spending. Representatives Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) and Elaine Luria (D-VA-02), both in competitive elections in swing districts, criticized Congress’ use of continuing resolutions but said the bill is necessary to keep government open.
Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) cited similar good-governance concerns as his reason for voting against the bill.
He said Friday, “Today’s passage of a Continuing Resolution – an irresponsible stop-gap measure – is an unfortunate reminder of Washington’s ‘budget by crisis’ mentality.
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House Republicans are demanding that the Department of Justice investigate New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office over a massive deal the governor struck between the state and one of her wealthy campaign donors.
Hochul’s office came under scrutiny earlier this month following the revelation that the governor organized a $637 million deal to buy COVID tests from a company owned by one of her largest campaign donors.
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New figures from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) show that the number of American citizens who report more than $1 million in income have jumped by a staggering 41 percent this year alone.
As reported by Politico, the IRS claims to have processed up to 387,840 returns reporting seven-figure incomes by mid-July; at the same time last year, the agency only found 274,879. The increase has been attributed to a strong performance on Wall Street last year, before the inflation crisis hit; in 2022 thus far, millionaires reported a collective total of $252.5 billion in capital gains, 80 percent higher compared to the previous year. In addition, millionaires’ salaries and wages rose by 45 percent.
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Hundreds of Virginians have had their guns confiscated from them through red-flag laws since those rules went into effect more than two years ago, according to data in the Virginia Firearms Transaction Center.
Red-flag laws allow police to seize firearms from a person if a judge deems him or her to be a threat to himself or others, even if that person has not been convicted of a crime, charged with a crime or even accused of a crime. The laws passed the General Assembly when Democrats had control of both chambers and were signed by former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam. The legislation received staunch opposition from the Republican minority at the time.
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Don’t look now, but Democrats’ 8-point lead in the generic Congressional ballot question from a month ago has evaporated in the latest Economist-YouGov poll of registered voters, which now shows the race for Congress tied, 44 percent to 44 percent on Sept. 24-27.
On Aug. 28-30, Democrats were leading Economist-YouGov’s generic ballot 46 percent to 38 percent. Leading the change in the state of the race is largely an apparent collapse of support for Democrats among younger adults, and a strengthening of support for Republicans among older adults.
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All four of Virginia’s Republican congressmen voted against a continuing resolution to continue funding the government through December 16, 2022; the bill passed Friday with just 10 votes from Republicans nationally, sending the bill to President Joe Biden who signed the legislation the same day. In press releases, three of the Virginia Republicans criticized the bill for continuing Democratic spending. Representatives Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07) and Elaine Luria (D-VA-02), both in competitive elections in swing districts, criticized Congress’ use of continuing resolutions but said the bill is necessary to keep government open.
Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA-01) cited similar good-governance concerns as his reason for voting against the bill.
He said Friday, “Today’s passage of a Continuing Resolution – an irresponsible stop-gap measure – is an unfortunate reminder of Washington’s ‘budget by crisis’ mentality.
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Which direction is the housing market going? To discern that requires understanding exactly where we are now, and how we got here. These are valuable points to ponder since Americans’ homes are often their most valuable asset and largest store of wealth, and those homes are hemorrhaging.
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Multiple homeless individuals and the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city of San Francisco, California, Tuesday for allegedly arresting people lacking available shelter and destroying belongings, without providing affordable housing options.
The city has subjected homeless people to “ongoing criminalization and property destruction practices,” according to the lawsuit. It contends San Francisco has violated Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment protections by threatening, citing, arresting and removing homeless individuals from public spaces and infringed on Fourth Amendment rights by illegally confiscating and destroying possessions.
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Former President Bill Clinton warned the Democratic Party that it shouldn’t let “defund the police and socialism” damage their chances of winning the Nov. 8 election.
Clinton was asked how the U.S. should handle existing threats to its democracy.
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New research on the demand for teachers highlights the lack of information about teacher shortages at all levels of government.
A working paper from Brown University found that “teacher shortages are still poorly understood, and it remains unclear whether there is a shortfall of teachers on the national scale or if shortages are localized – a key component of the current debate around teacher shortages.”
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