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Klete Keller, who once competed in the Olympics as a swimmer and won a gold medal, is due to be sentenced Friday for participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, NBC News reported.

Keller pleaded guilty in September 2021 to a felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. Prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 10 months in federal prison — lower than guidelines recommend since he cooperated with investigators after his arrest.

"Klete Derik Keller once wore the American flag as an Olympian," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. "On January 6, 2021, he threw that flag in a trash can."

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Prosecutors added that for "nearly three years, Keller has cooperated with the government’s investigation into the attack on the Capitol — repeatedly meeting with the government to describe everyone around him and everything that happened leading up to and on Jan. 6. He has provided substantial assistance and has expressed remorse for his crimes."

They added that Keller's actions "will forever be a stain on this country’s narrative, and it continues to impact our ability to credibly lead by example as a democratic republic." As a former Olympian, they added, Keller "was in a unique position to know better."

Keller "repeatedly resisted officers’ attempts to remove him from the building, at one point jerking his elbow away," according to prosecutors.

Read more at NBC News.

Florida governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis made a return to capital punishment in his state a key element of his "tough on crime" campaign messaging this past year, and the result was an overall increase in the use of the death penalty in the United States, according to a new annual report.

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) found that although a majority of U.S. states—29 of them—have now either abolished the death penalty or enacted a moratorium on executions, the number of people killed by state governments rose from 18 in 2022 to 25 in 2023.

The group attributed the rise to Florida's return to capital punishment after a four-year hiatus, with DeSantis moving forward with the executions of six people—the highest number in the state since 2014.

The state's new pattern of putting Floridians to death showed no sign of slowing down in the coming year, as it also imposed five new death sentences—the most of any state in 2023.

The DPIC catalogued other laws signed by DeSantis this year as he joined the Republican presidential primary race, in which he is currently trailing former Republican President Donald Trump by more than 47 points, with an average of 12.6% of Republicans backing him according to the latest polls.

In April Florida passed a law allowing the state to execute people convicted of sexual battery of a child under the age of 12 in cases in which the victim is not killed—a law that conflicts with a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar statute in Louisiana.

DeSantis also approved a law giving Florida the lowest threshold in the U.S. for permitting juries to sentence a convicted criminal to death, allowing a death sentence if only eight out of 12 jurors agree. Only Alabama and Florida allow non-unanimous juries to impose a death sentence, and Alabama's threshold is 10 jurors.

Florida also holds the country's record for the highest number of exonerations from death row, with 30 people exonerated—the majority after being sentenced by non-unanimous juries.

"It should be hard to send someone to the death penalty," Randolph Bracy, a former Democratic Florida state senator who pushed to require a unanimous jury vote for death sentences, toldThe New York Times when DeSantis signed the bill. "Florida has the highest rate of wrongful convictions, I think, in the country. We needed that threshold to make sure that we were doing the right thing."

As DeSantis' policies led to an increase in executions in the U.S., the DPIC reported that the Florida governor is out of step with a growing number of Americans. For the first time this year, Gallup found that 50% of Americans believe the death penalty is administered unfairly, while only 47% believe it is used fairly.

"That important change can also be seen in the unprecedented show of support for death-sentenced prisoners from conservative lawmakers and elected officials this year, some of whom now oppose use of the death penalty in their state," said Robin M. Maher, executive director of DPIC.

Richard Glossip, who was convicted of a 1997 murder in Oklahoma and sentenced to death earlier this year, was issued a stay of execution in May after the state's Republican attorney general joined campaigners who had long advocated for Glossip's life to be spared.

The DPIC found that a majority of the people who were executed in 2023—79% of whom had impairments such as brain injuries, serious childhood trauma, or developmental disabilities—would likely not have received death sentences had they been tried today, "due to significant changes in the law, prosecutorial decision-making, and public attitudes over the past few decades."

"Today," said the group, "they would have powerful arguments for life sentences and decisions from juries who better understand the effects of mental illness, developmental impairments, and severe trauma."

The clock is ticking on Rep. George Santos’s congressional career as a vote looms on the embattled lawmaker’s expulsion in the coming days. The Long Island Republican could face a fresh vote to boot him from office as early as Wednesday as the House of Representatives returns from its Thanksgiving break. Santos admitted over the holiday weekend that he believes he will be ousted after the recent release of an extraordinarily damning ethics committee report that accused him of using his congressional campaign as his personal piggy bank. He would be the first lawmaker since the Civil War era to ...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A group of parents in the Woodland Joint Unified High School District say they have collected enough signatures for a measure on the March 5 ballot to recall school board trustee Emily MacDonald for “prejudicial” comments she made about “transgenderism” at a meeting last summer. Laura Brubaker and Karen Bayne organized the recall effort after MacDonald spoke about the “social contagion” of “transgender identification” at a June 15 board discussion of the district’s PRIDE Month resolution. “While I share with everyone here tremendous respect for the achievements and contrib...

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) is still upset after he was allegedly shoved in the halls of the Capitol building by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

In an interview with CNN's Manu Raju, Burchett recounted the incident, which was first reported by NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Grisales, in which McCarthy walked by him and allegedly gave him a sharp elbow.

Burchett then denounced the former speaker in more personal terms.

"As I have stated many times, he is a bully with $17 million and a security detail," he said. "He is the type of guy that, when you are a kid, he would throw the rock over the fence and run home to hide behind his mama's skirt. He hit from behind, and that kind of stuff. That is not the way we handle things in East Tennessee."

McCarthy has denied elbowing Burchett, who was one of eight Republican lawmakers to vote to oust him as speaker earlier this year.

However, Burchett told Raju that he is not buying McCarthy's denial for a minute.

"Of course, as he always does, he just denies it or blames somebody else or something," said Burchett, who claimed that he was still feeling some pain in his kidneys thanks to his encounter with McCarthy.

Watch the video below or at this link.

GOP lawmaker rails at 'bully' Kevin McCarthy over alleged shoving incident www.youtube.com

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) reportedly stepped in to stop a "literal brawl" during a Senate hearing Tuesday.

At a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee meeting, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) read a tweet from Teamster Sean O'Brien. The social media post suggested O'Brien was ready to fight the senator.

"Sir, this is a time, this is a place," Mullin said. "If you want to run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here."

"Perfect," O'Brien replied.

"You want to do it now?" Mullin challenged.

"I'd love to do it right now," O'Brien insisted.

"Well, stand your butt up then," the senator said.

"You stand your butt up," O'Brien shot back.

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At that point, Mullin stood up and prepared to fight O'Brien before Sanders spoke up.

"Oh, hold it," Sanders remarked. "Is that your solution? No, no, sit down. Sit down. You're a United States Senator. Act like it."

Bloomberg's Ian Kullgren described the incident as a near "literal brawl."

"This is the most insane thing I have ever seen on Capitol Hill," he wrote on X.

Watch the video below or at this link.