02b U.S. Politics – Progressive
House Republicans indicated Wednesday they will continue to seek sworn testimony from Pam Bondi on the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, even after her ousting as attorney general.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bondi for an April 14 deposition, but that date was never confirmed by Bondi, and the panel said in a statement that it will continue to seek a date for her testimony.
“The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on April 14 for a deposition since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General,” a spokeswoman for Oversight Republicans said in a statement. “The Committee will contact Pam Bondi’s personal counsel to discuss next steps regarding scheduling her deposition.”
Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena to Bondi last month after five Republican lawmakers on the panel joined with Democrats to compel her testimony. The campaign to force Bondi to sit for questioning was championed by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who brought the motion during a hearing.
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Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, from left, former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 2025.J. Scott Applewhite/AP
In 2023, after Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress, the Justice Department noted the stiff sentence reflected the court’s conclusion that Rhodes’ “conduct was terrorism.”
“The Oath Keepers plotted for months to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” then–Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “The Justice Department will continue to do everything in our power to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6th attack on our democracy.”
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Resignations came quickly this week from two congressmen accused of sexual misconduct toward staff members. Yet for many of the women of Capitol Hill, the moment of accountability was years in the making — and far from enough.
Reps. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, both announced within hours of each other Monday that they were leaving Congress. Their decisions came the day before the House returned to Washington and as both faced the prospect of being expelled from the chamber by their colleagues.
It was a reckoning of sorts for Capitol Hill, the most striking since the careers of roughly a dozen male politicians were toppled during the heights of the #MeToo movement. Yet some congresswomen said that the pair of resignations took too long and proved what they’ve long been saying: that more must be done to rid Capitol Hill of sexual predation.
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You know that the Elitist Media have a hard time reporting on the military operation in Iran when a supposed war roundup gets a couple of sentences on the war and then two minutes of seemingly everything else. That’s exactly what happened at ABC when it came time to report on the ongoing U.S. naval blockade against Iran.
Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Tuesday, April 14th, 2026:
A demoralized ABC offers two sentences on the blockade and throws everything else into its supposed Iran war roundup. Note the omission of oil or stock markets. pic.twitter.com/3Gw4ezU71m
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 15, 2026
DAVID MUIR: There are also breaking developments in the war in Iran. President Trump’s high-stakes U.S. naval blockade with the cost of gas $4.10 a gallon here in the U.S., up $1.16 since the start of the war. Tonight, the President says new talks with Iran could come in days. And President Trump tonight lashing out at Pope Leo again, and what he’s saying now. Ian Pannell from the region again tonight.
IAN PANNELL: Tonight, that high-stakes U.S. naval blockade of all Iranian ports is holding. U.S. Central Command saying no ships got past the blockade in the first 24 hours, and six merchant vessels were turned around. The U.S. hoping to choke Iran’s oil income to force concessions in peace talks. And tonight, President Trump signaling a second round of negotiations could be happening soon, along with a deal. The President telling our Jon Karl, quote: “I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead.”
The President’s made similar predictions at other points during this war. And the President also tonight lashing out at Pope Leo again to an Italian newspaper saying the Pope has no idea what’s going on with Iran. Trump ally Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni slamming the President’s criticism of the Pontiff as, quote, “unacceptable.” And she’s joined other U.S. allies that have refused to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The President blasting Meloni, telling that Italian newspaper “I’m shocked by her. I thought she had courage, I was wrong.” Trump also criticizing NATO allies for not helping with the war effort as he looks increasingly isolated. Another of his key allies, Viktor Orban of Hungary, who was close with Vladimir Putin, now voted out of office, some voters saying it’s a return to democratic values.
And the Lebanese and Israeli governments holding the first direct talks in decades in Washington, both agreeing to more talks.
MARCO RUBIO: This is more than just one day. This will take time, but we believe it is worth this endeavor.
PANNELL: David, this blockade squeezing Iran’s economy. But U.S. gas prices still high at $4.10 a gallon. That’s up $1.16 since the start of the war. And that means pressure on The White House, too, to get a deal done and get that oil flowing again.
MUIR: Ian Pannell from the region again. Ian, thank you.
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During Trump’s first term, he launched a trade war with China that caused a crisis in the farming community. However, farmers didn’t learn their lesson. By the time the 2024 election rolled around, farmers had some sort of collective amnesia because they did it all to themselves again. Only this time, it is even worse.
Trump already hit farmers with his tariffs and trade wars. Trump got nearly 78% of the vote from farming communities in 2024, and the president thanked them by shutting down USAID and cutting SNAP.
A new survey of farmers for the American Farm Bureau Federation shows that things are about to get much worse for the nation’s farmers:
Conducted by the American Farm Bureau Federation April 3-11, the survey shows 70% of respondents say fertilizer is so expensive that they will not be able to buy all the fertilizer they need.
More than 5,700 farmers, both Farm Bureau members and non-members, from every state and Puerto Rico took the survey. Farm Bureau economists analyzed the results in the latest Market Intel.
The analysis reveals that almost 8 in 10 farmers in the southern U.S. say they can’t afford all needed supplies this year, followed by the Northeast and West at 69% and 66%, respectively, compared to 48% of the farmers in the Midwest.
Just 19% of farmers in the South prebooked fertilizer purchases in advance of planting season. In the Northeast, only 30% of farmers prebooked, followed by 31% in the West, and 67% in the Midwest. Even with higher pre-booking rates, almost one in three Midwestern farmers still report entering the season without securing all of their fertilizer needs.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued a proclamation on Tuesday setting the date for a special election to fill the remainder of former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) term for Aug. 18. Swalwell resigned from Congress earlier on Tuesday after a flurry of reporting from The San Francisco Chronicle and CNN late last week alleged that the congressman, once seen as the Democratic frontrunner in the California governor’s race, had sexually…
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On Tuesday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “The Last Word,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said that the Iranian regime “can, on some level of truth, say, we just took on America and Israel and fought them to a tie, although maybe even more than a tie.” And argued that “anybody in history would know you cannot bomb an adversary into submission.”
Warner said, “Lawrence, we have spent 100,000 sorties against them. We have bombed them. But anybody in history would know you cannot bomb an adversary into submission.”
He added that “in so many ways, 46 days in, America is less strong. And the Iranian regime, which is, by the way, more radical than it was before, can, on some level of truth, say, we just took on America and Israel and fought them to a tie, although maybe even more than a tie. They have ballistic missile capabilities, they have closed the strait, their regime is more radical. And I can just say, as I mentioned earlier, if we were to go after their enriched uranium, it would take 10,000 soldiers guarding a perimeter for days, and then we are going to send our special operators in, and the Iranians could bomb that.”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, takes his seat before a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence Education in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Washington.Alex Brandon/AP
Sam Altman suggested that an investigative story describing him as someone “unconstrained by truth” with a “sociopathic lack of concern” for consequences caused an early Friday attack on his San Francisco home.
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Back in January, President Trump dropped a one-liner worthy of the usually inimitable Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, who said of his long-ago romance with then-District Attorney Kamala Harris: “She loved me, I loved me. It was the perfect relationship.” Trump’s version, offered in an interview with NBC News, was about the…
Eric Swalwell Shows His Lack Of Character In Resignation Statement– www.politicususa.com
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Eric Swalwell is 45 years old, and at some point in the near future, the odds are that he will try to stage a political comeback. That is the only explanation I can think of for Swalwell’s resignation statement, which contained enough ambiguity and blame of others to suggest that he is going to try to reemerge after he thinks the scandal has blown over.
Here was Swalwell’s resignation statement:
Swalwell talks about taking responsibility, but he doesn’t give any indication that he thinks he did anything wrong. Sexual misconduct and sexual assault are not mistakes. Those are choices that hurt and harm women. A mistake is something that wasn’t intended to happen. What Swalwell did was make a choice.
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Brownstein’s statements were so off the point where even host Audie Cornish had to remind him Republicans were poised to expel Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-TX) after the sexual affair scandal that helped lead to a loss in his primary.
Cornish had to push back on Brownstein with mention of grown Republican support to expel Representative Tony Gonzales (R-TX) as a point against Brownstein’s allegations of Republican support of sexual abuse, as Brownstein was still stuck on the Republican “coalition”:
Brownstein’s attempt not to talk about Swalwell took the conversation off track and did not give the Swalwell conversation its needed focus. The hijacking of the segment only reflected poorly on Brownstein in his attempt to minimize Swalwell’s actions, something that, apparently, had been an open secret on Capitol Hill and California politics.
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When the 2026 midterm cycle began, even Democratic operatives would have laughed in your face if you said that control of the Senate was up for grabs.
But now, less than seven months from Election Day, Democrats’ odds of wresting control from Republicans have grown as President Donald Trump’s sagging popularity—spurred by Americans’ anger over his war and its negative impacts on the economy—imperils the GOP.
The Supreme Court and Trump’s Regime are Full of Christian Fascists revcom.us
from news.google.com
Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orban has lost reelection in stunning fashion, an absolute electoral wipeout that presages what his MAGA allies in the U.S. will be facing this November.
The brand-new opposition Tisza party won around 53% of the vote, to just 37% for Orban’s Fidesz. Tisza is projected to secure around 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament, comfortably above the 133 needed for a supermajority, giving it the power to rewrite Hungary’s constitution and begin dismantling the autocratic system Orban spent 16 years building. Fidesz currently holds 135 seats.
Iran sees American demands as reaching far beyond what the United States achieved in war. Tehran is gambling that it can withstand further bombardment more than Washington is willing to sustain economic chaos, experts say.
from www.nytimes.com
John Brennan, who was the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, has joined calls for the removal of US President Donald Trump from office, declaring that the US Constitution’s 25th Amendment was drawn up with Trump specifically in mind.
Donald Trump hasn’t done interviews with neutral journalists who could challenge him in years. Trump’s venues of choice are either cell phone interviews that last a minute or two or conservative media like Fox News and Newsmax.
The Fox News interviews are heavily manufactured, usually pretaped, and edited before they air.
It takes a special level of incompetence to go on a network that is propagandistic and supportive and botch a softball question in such a friendly and managed environment.
The issue that is driving the special election results that Democrats have been dominating, and the Democratic Party’s midterm generic ballot lead that has been growing, is the economy. Inflation and rising prices are driving voter outrage directed at this president and his administration.
President Donald Trump spent the last week causing global panic, threatening to wipe out Iranian civilization before walking it back—at least for now.
But his callous threats are nothing new.
This is just the latest example of Republicans indulging themselves in phony masculinity by championing loud and obnoxious aggression. And this type of behavior didn’t begin with Trump, and it isn’t even the first time the right’s saber-rattling has involved Iran.
Driven by a desire to retain power and avoid political consequences such as impeachment, Donald Trump is pursuing three measures that could influence the upcoming midterm elections.
Late last month, the No Kings Movement conducted over three thousand large protests in all fifty states. As many as eight million concerned citizens made their voices heard, the largest protest in US history, and everyone was watching. This president and the complicit now sense their end and are rightfully frightened. The much-anticipated November mid-term elections risk sweeping a host of Trump supporters from office and Democrats becoming the majority in the House and Senate. Which risks a presidential impeachment process to follow. A third impeachment of a president has no historical precedent. Then again, there has never been a White House resident like this one.
The Australian foreign minister has called for an urgent end to hostilities in Lebanon.
In a statement, Penny Wong said: “Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Jordan, Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom remain deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian situation and displacement crisis in Lebanon.
“We welcome the ceasefire agreed between the United States, Israel and Iran. We call for an urgent end to hostilities in Lebanon.
“Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected from the effects of hostilities.
Trump’s behavior surrounding the Iran war has changed the priorities of House Democrats.
For the duration of Trump’s first year in office, House Democratic leadership has stressed that dealing with affordability and inflation are the top issues that they have been focused on, but Democrats are getting an overwhelming number of calls from their constituents, and the members themselves are enraged over Trump’s behavior.
The Elitist Media are known for hiding significant news that doesn’t align with their liberal agenda or generally naked Democrats look bad. Their ongoing omission of new allegations against U.S. Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) stands as the latest example.
Per the Free Beacon:
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) will “soon” face sexual harassment allegations from a number of “credible women,” including former staffers, according to the leader of the left-wing advocacy group Gen-Z for Change, who said she has been “personally working” with the women to expose a “pattern of manipulation and abuse of power.”
The group’s executive director, Cheyenne Hunt, detailed the impending allegations against Swalwell, who is running for governor of California, in a series of social media posts. Her original video was posted to Instagram in late March and cited a text from a woman who wrote, “You know Eric Swalwell has slept with many of his interns and makes them all sign NDAs so they don’t speak up, right? And when I was 19 he tried hitting on me and sliding into my DMs and I have so many other friends that have similar experiences with him.” Hunt said the message was “not an anomaly” but “part of a pattern.”
Chris Taylor, a liberal Wisconsin judge, won a seat on the state Supreme Court on Tuesday in the latest strong election for liberals since President Donald Trump’s return to office.
Taylor, a former Democratic state representative and current state appellate judge, defeated conservative appeals court judge Maria Lazar in the race for the ten-year term. Taylor’s win expands liberals’ majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to a 5-2 split.
Trump’s Xi moment? A military purge unfolds in the US MSN
from news.google.com
After Trump pulled back and caved to Iran at the last moment, which creates doubt that the president’s threats to destroy Iranian civilization were ever serious, the United States is asking itself questions like, “Why was this war fought? What was gained by fighting this war? What happens after the war, both to the Middle East and the United States?
The Wall Street Journal, which famously floats trial balloons for corporate behemoths, is carrying water for the poor AI companies who are so, so disliked:
OpenAI this week published a populist wish list of policy proposals that zero in on worries like job replacement and wealth concentration, floating such ideas as a four-day workweek and an AI-invested public-wealth fund distributed to citizens.
Those proposals come as its rival Anthropic has been signing partnerships and building tools for such sectors as consulting and software, where share prices have been whacked by investor worries that they will be replaced by AI. Anthropic’s efforts have helped push back up shares of tech companies including LegalZoom.com LZ 3.84%increase; green up pointing triangle.
Anthropic and OpenAI are each pursuing ventures to help private equity, a big owner of companies in sectors ripe for disruption, with AI transformation. (Those efforts could also yield lucrative new business customers.)
The Rundown: Gov. Pritzker calls for Trump’s removal from office WBEZ Chicago
from news.google.com
This is a spectacular screw-up—and it implicates the The New York Times newsroom top to bottom. A The New York Times headline ignorantly called NATO the “North American Treaty Organization,” triggering widespread online ridicule and criticism of editorial standards. The error spread quickly on social media, with users calling it embarrassing and questioning newsroom competence. The paper acknowledged the mistake and said a correction would appear in the next print edition.