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‘The biggest middle finger’: The View blasts Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons



The co-hosts of "The View" were furious with new President Donald Trump handing pardons and clemency to some of the most violent Jan. 6 attackers.

In his speech issuing pardons to approximately 1500 people, co-host Sara Haines was offended that Trump used the word "hostages" to refer to those imprisoned since there are actual hostages still in the Middle East.

"They were terrorized by Hamas and have not all come back, so that's a hostage. You can't use that term loosely," she said. "These people committed crimes."

ALSO READ: The terrifying implications of pardoning insurrectionists who killed and maimed

"When we talk about guardrails — you said no one is there to check him," she continued. "His own vice president said if you committed violence on that day, January 6th, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned. His attorney general last week said I condemn any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country. Sixty percent of Americans don't agree with pardoning them. This was the biggest middle finger he could give the entire country. Out of all of his options."

The panel debated President Joe Biden issuing preemptive pardons to people like Dr. Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley, and his own family. The pardons came after years of Trump threatening retribution against them.

Alyssa Farah Griffin said that Biden should operate on a moral high ground and shouldn't have issued pardons for his family without also stepping in to save those who spoke out against Trump, who will likely be targeted in the coming years.

Alexander Vindman's wife, Rachel, complained on Threads that her husband wasn't offered a pardon. Vindman came forward about Trump attempting to bribe the president of Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden before he'd send the military aide given by Congress.

Others like Griffin herself and aides like Cassidy Hutchinson came forward to testify before the Jan. 6 committee. There is a fear that they will also become targets but weren't protected the way the officials and their staff were.

"I think Biden holds himself on this certain moral high ground and sets a very dangerous precedent," said Griffin.

Sunny Hostin disagreed, saying that Trump is a "very dangerous man," and she understands Biden's fear for his family.

"Yes," Griffin agreed, saying that Trump is dangerous. However, "that's going to allow that man to basically give blanket pardons to anyone he chooses."

Hostin argued that Trump would do that regardless of Biden's actions and had campaigned on it.

See the discussion below or at the link here.

Part 1:

Part 2:


‘Something we have to do’: Border czar Tom Homan on snatching immigrants from schools



"Border czar" Tom Homan vowed to snatch undocumented immigrants from schools if he deemed them a threat to national security.

During a Tuesday interview on Fox Business, host Stuart Varney noted that the Department of Homeland Security "issued a memo to repeal limits on ICE agents."

"Am I right in saying that this frees up ICE agents to go into schools, hospitals, and other institutions to arrest illegals?" Varney asked Homan.

"Well, again, the officers have a great deal of discretion depending on the location," Homan confirmed. "There's not a blanket, you know, saying we can't go in these locations at all, but there's going to be a process put in place where there is discretion used."

"If and when ICE went into a school to arrest someone, that would be highly contentious, wouldn't it?" Varney pressed.

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

"Well, absolutely," Homan agreed. "But then again, you know, what's our national security worth?"

"I mean, if we have a national security vulnerability that we know is a national security risk, and we've got to walk on a college campus to get them, that's something we have to do."

Watch the video below or at this link.

TX GOP rep. calls for ‘naming everything American’ after Trump changes Gulf of Mexico



Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) called for "naming everything American" after President Donald Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed to the "Gulf of America."

In an executive order this week, Trump gave the secretary of the Interior 30 days to "take all appropriate actions to rename as the 'Gulf of America' the U.S. Continental Shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba in the area formerly named as the Gulf of Mexico."

He also said Danali would be named "Mount McKinley" and called for "taking back" the Panama Canal.

"I don't know what happened in the past, but President Trump is right for that, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America," Hunt told Fox News on Tuesday. "You know, I'm a patriot. I'm a combat veteran."

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

"I love the idea of naming everything American, if you ask me," he added. "But these are the kind of issues, the culture issues that people want to see, putting our country first. That's exactly what he is signaling by some of these decisions."

Fox News host Steve Doocy joked: "He owns a bunch of golf courses. Maybe he was saying Golf of America, not Gulf."

Watch the video below or at this link.

‘Is God partisan?’ Priest takes issue with Trump’s claim he was ‘saved by God’



A Catholic priest told CNN that he takes issue with President Donald Trump's claim that God saved him from an assassin's bullet so he could help "make America great again."

Father Edward Beck, chaplain at Manhattan University and CNN contributor on religious and spiritual matters, told host Kate Bolduan on Tuesday that Trump's inaugural comments on a day that happened to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, amounted to "hubris."

Bolduan played a clip of Trump saying Monday, "Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin's bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again."

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

Beck began, "Well, I think the theology is problematic. So, did God not save MLK Jr.? I mean, a prophet, who is speaking about a vision for the country that we still revere to this day? Why was he killed and why was this president saved? So, does God have favorites? Is God partisan? What makes you think that that was God's intervention, other than hubris, which is condemned in the scripture and it lacks humility, and so it's not my theology. It's not the theology of the Judeo-Christian tradition that we have a kind of God who picks and chooses who he will save."

Evangelical Christians have long supported Trump's presidential aspirations, with many believing he is, in fact, "anointed by God" to save America. They justify Trump's past as an adulterer and convicted felon by claiming that God has used "imperfect individuals" for great things throughout history, such as King David and King Solomon.

Trump received widespread criticism for failing to place his left hand on the Bible while taking the oath of office Monday, as first lady Melania Trump stood by holding two Bibles for the purpose.

The president is expected to spend Tuesday morning at Washington National Cathedral for the national prayer service.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

Trump’s energy plan will ‘mortally harm’ GOP districts and help Elon Musk: analyst



President Donald Trump kicked off his first day back in the White House with executive orders directed to address what he calls an "energy emergency" — ostensibly to increase American production of oil and gas. This came after he campaigned on blaming inflation on the Biden administration's climate policies and vowing to save consumers money on their energy bills with increased production, even though U.S. oil and gas production under the Biden administration was stronger than in Trump's first term

But if you look at his energy policies closely, wrote Robinson Meyer for the Heatmap energy newsletter, you'll see that his goal isn't actually to lower energy bills for Americans, but to force them to buy and use more oil and gas.

The problem, Meyer wrote, is that while some of Trump's policies are about opening up new areas for drilling and fuel production, a lot more of them are about repealing various mandates and incentives to make homes, appliances, and cars use less energy — meaning people would actually be paying more in the long run because they have to consume more. And then there are his threatened tariffs on Canadian energy, which would make oil and gas more expensive but also shift the supply to more domestic sources.

ALSO READ: 'Daddy’s home:' Conspiracies abound as MAGA storms DC bars for Trump's inauguration

"When you look closer, what stands out about Trump’s policies is how few of them are designed to lower energy prices," said Meyer. "Instead, they aim to do virtually the opposite: shore up oil and gas demand. According to The Wall Street Journal, ensuring demand for oil and gas products — and not deregulating drilling further — is what the industry has asked Trump to do. That makes sense. The United States is, at the moment, producing more oil and gas than any country in world history. The fossil fuel industry’s problem isn’t getting gas out of the ground, but finding people to sell it to. By suspending fuel economy and energy efficiency rules, Trump can force Americans to use more energy — and spend more on oil and gas — to do the same amount of useful work."

The irony, Meyer noted, is that in particular, Trump's efforts to roll back incentives for electric vehicles — which his close ally Elon Musk has endorsed out of a belief it would stifle his competition — could be a blow to districts that voted for him last year.

"By kneecapping demand for electric vehicles, Trump will hurt the critical minerals industry more than any anti-growth hippie could fathom," wrote Meyer. "For the past few years, corporate America and Wall Street have invested billions of dollars in lithium and rare-earths mining and processing facilities across the country. These projects, which are largely in Republican districts, only make financial sense in a world where the United States produces a large and growing number of electric vehicles ... If Trump kills the non-Tesla part of the EV industry, then he will also mortally harm those projects’ economics."

Trump floats plan to revive TikTok: ‘Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration!’



President-elect Donald Trump apparently wants MAGA fans to watch Monday's inauguration on TikTok so much that he promised "no liability" to any company who gets the social media platform back up and running before he takes office.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company Bytedance, officially went dark on Sunday after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lawmakers' ban on the platform in the name of national security.

Trump took to his own social media platform, TruthSocial, to float his idea Sunday.

"I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order," Trump wrote.

ALSO READ: Inside the parade of right-wing world leaders flocking to D.C. for Trump's inauguration

He continued, "Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations."

Trump then proposed a business deal: "I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions.

"Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose."

Earlier, Trump posted, "SAVE TIKTOK!"which angered some in his MAGA base.

So far, legal experts haven't weighed in on Trump's proposal or whether it would pose any liability to TikTok or Bytedance, itself. Once Trump becomes president, however, he will have the power to pardon federal offenses once a formal application is received by the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

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Hittin’ the Note with Todd Eberwine

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Ted Cruz snaps as Dem invokes  famous 2013 clash: ‘You’re not Dianne Feinstein’



Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) interrupted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday to tell the Texas Republican she felt "personally aggrieved" by his lecturing — only to have Cruz fire back by invoking the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, snapping, "You're not Dianne Feinstein."

The blowup came after Cruz delivered a lengthy monologue at a hearing on the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling — a 6-3 decision gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — accusing Democrats of believing Black candidates can only win in gerrymandered districts.

"The Democrats are fond of telling this story that is, and I wish I could find a kinder way to say it, a flat-out lie," Cruz said, rattling off Black Republican lawmakers elected in majority-white districts: Sen. Tim Scott, Reps. Burgess Owens, Byron Donalds, John James, and Wesley Hunt.

"In the Democrats' world, you're not Black if you're not a liberal Democrat," Cruz declared. "There is an arrogance to African American voters."

The Texas Republican then accused Democrats of being the real gerrymandering offenders, demanding to know how many Republicans represent New England in the U.S. House.

"Zero. Zero," Cruz said. "They've drawn every district in a naked gerrymander, and yet they're very upset that their illegal pursuit of power has now been stopped by the Supreme Court."

That's when Hirono cut in.

"Point of personal privilege," she said. "I feel personally aggrieved to sit here and to be lectured by my colleague from Texas."

Hirono then reached back more than a decade to invoke a now-famous clash between Cruz and Feinstein, who memorably told a freshman Cruz during a 2013 hearing on gun safety that she was "not a sixth grader."

"This reminds me of the time when he was first elected to the Senate, and the Judiciary Committee had a hearing on gun safety, and he felt a need to lecture Dianne Feinstein," Hirono said. "And she said to him, something along the lines of, 'I did not sit here on this committee for however many years she did, only to be lectured by you.'"

"And that is how I feel," Hirono continued. "So why don't you just stop lecturing the rest of us? Just because you think you are the smartest person in the world doesn't mean the rest of us agree with that."

Cruz didn't let it go.

"I knew Dianne Feinstein. I served with Dianne Feinstein," he shot back. "And you're not Dianne Feinstein."