Sophie Alcorn Contributor Share on X Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Ask Sophie: What […]
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PayPal has begun company-wide layoffs, according to multiple reports, including an article published by The Information. It is not yet clear at the time of writing how many people will be affected by the job cuts but one source told TechCrunch it was expected to be in the “thousands.” Update: Bloomberg reported today that about […]
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The TikTok ban on U.S. government devices is proving hard to enforce. A month after the IRS was found to be in non-compliance with the federally mandated ban on the Beijing-based video app, two Republican senators are asking the IRS why it’s still allowing some of the agency’s employees to access the social network, and […]
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Building a solid rulebook around AI policies in the workplace now can help prevent plenty of headaches in the future.
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If you thought the rest of the wingnuts out there howling about Taylor Swift and the game supposedly being rigged after the Chiefs won the AFC championship game this weekend were bad, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Here's One America News Network nutter Alison Steinberg accusing professional football and major league sports in general of being one big psy-ops program designed to brainwash your kids:
STEINBERG: America’s pop star celebrity sweetheart joins forces with the top dog in the NFL playing for the team that’s going to the Super Bowl. I mean, let’s be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psy-op. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen.
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OpenAI hopes to win the trust of parents — and policymakers — by partnering with organizations that work to minimize tech and media harms to kids, preteens and teens. Case in point, OpenAI today announced a partnership with Common Sense Media, the nonprofit organization that reviews and ranks the suitability of various media and tech […]
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Media streamer Plex has raised new capital. The company, which began as a media organization startup, has morphed over the years to become a one-stop shop for all your media, including ad-supported streaming, which now accounts for much of its revenue growth. The new round, which has not yet been disclosed, is larger than Plex’s […]
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Those of us lucky enough to be sitting by a window can predict the weather just by looking outside, but for the less privileged, weather forecasting and analysis is getting better and better. Tomorrow.io just released the results from its first two radar satellites, which, thanks to machine learning, turn out to be competitive with […]
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It's safe to say that Rep. Boebert's first showing in CO-04 on the debate stage did not impress. She garnered support from just 10% of a straw poll vote after last week's debate. It's said that when the results of the poll were read there were audible gasps in the room. "She's finished," quipped one Twitter account.
Is she finished? That remains to be seen. One thing is clear though, if Lauren Boebert wants to keep her special brand of crazy in the House of Representatives she's going to have work for it.
Source: Colorado Politics
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert's middling finish in a straw poll Thursday night drew gasps from the crowd that had just witnessed the Colorado lawmaker face off against eight other Republicans in a congressional primary debate at a rec center in Fort Lupton.
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TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility – the same weekly newsletter you’ve been reading, but with a new name and a few changes. As I mentioned […]
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Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) reacted to the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case by doubling down on his support of former President Donald Trump.
During a Sunday interview on ABC's This Week program, host Martha Raddatz asked the surrogate if he was bothered after a jury ordered Trump to pay $83 million for defaming Carroll.
"Does that give you any pause in your support?" Raddatz wondered.
"I saw that all the voters that support Donald Trump support a return to normalcy as it relates to what affects their kitchen table," Scott replied, changing the subject. "The average person in our country, Martha, they're not talking about lawsuits."
"As a matter of fact, what I have seen, however, is that the perception that the legal system is being weaponized against Donald Trump is actually increasing his poll numbers," he insisted.
Raddatz pressed: "I understand that, but this was- they were jury trials. They started when Donald Trump was president. That doesn't- that gives you no pause whatsoever?"
"The Democrats don't pause when they think about Hunter Biden and the challenges that he brings to his father," Scott asserted. "The one thing I think the electorate is thinking about most often is how in the world will the next president impact my quality of life?"
Rudy Giuliani made an appearance on Newsmax this Friday after Trump's useless lawyers cost him $83.3 million in his defamation case from E. Jean Carroll, and offered up this insane "defense" of Trump:
Trump’s onetime personal attorney, in an interview with Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt, declared that the legal system has “gone to hell” before calling U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the Carroll defamation trial, a “pure disgrace.”
Last year, Kaplan presided over a separate trial in which a jury found the former president liable for sexually abusing Carroll, who has maintained that Trump raped her in the 1990s, and awarded her $5 million in damages.
“First of all, he was found not guilty — or not liable for rape,” Giuliani told Schmitt.
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Opera revealed today that it will launch a new AI-powered browser built on its own engine for iOS in Europe. The Norway-based company announced the change following the news that Apple is going to allow alternative browser engines to run on iOS as a result of the requirements of the European Digital Markets Act (DMA). […]
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With over 3 million users and plans to open up more broadly in the months ahead, Bluesky is still establishing itself as an alternative to Twitter/X. However, that hasn’t stopped the developer community from embracing the project and building tools to meet the needs of those fleeing the now Elon Musk-owned social network, formerly known […]
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“It’s the single best time to invest in [crypto] companies,” according to 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners’ CEO, Dan Tapiero.
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On Thursday, the Wisconsin State Assembly convened to discuss a bill which would limit abortion to 14 weeks instead of the current 20 week window. Republican lawmakers made incredible leaps of illogic and twisted themselves into pretzels in trying to justify this unpopular bill.
For example, State Representative Joel Kitchens claims that his experience in veterinarian medicine and having performed thousands of ultrasounds on animals makes him the residential expert on "mammalian fetal development" in the Assembly. Let's just ignore the fact that there are two nurses, who treated human patients, also in the Assembly. Kitchens apparently feels that his expertise in "mammalian fetal development" also makes him an expert in medical ethics. Because apparently, he feels that putting an animal to sleep is equitable to stopping a pregnancy which is endangering the mother or involves a 12 year old girl who was raped by her father.
But wait! There's more! There's always more.
Look at State Representative Ron Tusler, who tried to use examples from the Bible to justify making women carry babies even if it is dangerous to the health of the mother. He cited Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, was allegedly 88 years old when she was pregnant with him. He then quickly pivots to Mary, who was allegedly a teenager when she was pregnant with Jesus. Tusler then added that her pregnancy was dangerous because Jewish law at the time dictated that she should be stoned to death. Does anyone want to inform him that she was married to Joseph?
Apple has announced a raft of changes incoming to iOS in the European Union as the iPhone maker prepares to roll out its response to the bloc’s ex ante competition reform, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Back in September, the EU designated Apple as one of six so-called “gatekeepers” subject to the DMA, listing the […]
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Feds sought six months for Navarro, he got four.
Steve Bannon is still out there doing his podcasts but also sentenced to the same imaginary 4-month sentence.
Via MSNBC, above:
Peter Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison. That's just short of what prosecutors were seeking: the mandatory minimum was one month. The judge went beyond that. The judge said it was circumstances of his own making and he was not a victim of political persecution, pointing out the fact you had the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who had his lawyers deal with the committee, who was not charged in this case. There were circumstances that the Justice Department made a decision because Navarro had so defied the returning records -- or appearing for people during this situation, that this was deserving of a four-month sentence. It matches what Steve Bannon got for the same circumstance, but Steve Bannon has not served that four-month sentence yet because that's still on appeal. You would expect the same from Navarro. Not something where he will have to report to jail. That four-month sentence is hanging over his head.
Alinea Invest, a fintech app offering AI-powered wealth management aimed at Gen Z women, has $3.4 million in seed funding ahead of the launch of a virtual AI assistant that will help users with their investing needs. The fundraising comes on the heels of 225,000 downloads of Alinea’s app, leading to a revenue run-rate of […]
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As we dive in to the work of commercial space technology and startups, it’s important to start with an overview of some of the basics.
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It's obvious that Fox News's Greg Gutfeld has a chubby for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, and we don't blame him. It's OK, Greg. She's smart, pretty, capable, and she can dance. Gutfeld brought up AOC allegedly saying that people "who support Trump are projecting their masculine insecurity," and that upset him for some reason. I wonder why that is. (He wants her).
"When AOC happily psychoanalyzes groups of people, then it's an invitation to return the favor, right?" he said. "If she can do it. She's saying that people who support Trump are projecting their masculine insecurity."
"But isn't she saying that because of her own insecurities about her boyfriend's masculinity, right?" Gutfeld insisted. "She must realize how soft and buttery and feminine progressive males are, and it's hard to get horny with a snowflake."
"So it's why -- I think this is why she's so pro-illegal immigration," he added. "She's projecting her secret desires for young, virile men who are coming here in droves, and she's stuck with pajama boy, and it's driving her crazy. All these Trump supporters, men, MMA fighters, drives her nuts."
Artisse, one of the many AI photo creation apps that let users generate photos of themselves using uploaded selfies combined with prompts, has raised $6.7 million in seed funding, following AI selfies’ viral moment. Similar to others on the market, Artisse users upload photos of themselves to train its AI on their images, then use […]
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Republicans keep telling on themselves, especially about abortion. It used to be that Republicans blamed everything, including hurricanes, on the gays. Welp, it's about abortion now. I just watched an old-ish clip of Rep. Mike Johnson before he was the House Speaker blaming any potential Social Security cuts on abortion. The point is that they aren't telling the truth about abortion. It's about control.
Just ask Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, who doesn't want Republicans saying the quiet part out loud after playing a clip of vice-President Kamala Harris blaming the former President for overturning Roe. "He's proud of what he did," Harris said.
"Kayleigh, as a communicator, you are among the best," Kilmeade said. "If Republicans now have two years to message the right to life and being pro-life in a country that is not majority pro-life. How do you do that, hold onto your values, and at the same time win elections?
Notice how Kilmeade admitted that pro-lifers are not a majority in this country. For her part, McEnany seemed upset that Harris is focused on abortion. McEnany said pro-life Americans are "pro-mother" and "show compassion on the issue."
Lady, tell that to the 10-year-old rape victim your people tried to force to have a baby. We've seen your form of "compassion" before.
Kilmeade doesn't want Americans to know the truth. Well, he's on the right network for that.
Japan’s first lunar lander has officially powered down on the moon after its solar cells were unable to generate electricity, though the nation’s space agency said there is a possibility of turning things around when the direction of the sun’s rays change. Japan made history last week when its lander, called Smart Lander for Investigating […]
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Sunday disavowed the far-right Patriot Front group after a march in New York City.
In a viral video on Saturday, members of the group could be seen marching toward the World Trade Center. The purpose of the protest was not immediately clear, but marchers carried a sign reading, "No Zionists in Government."
On Sunday, Greene denounced the group.
"Not a 'right wing' group," the lawmaker wrote on X. "Definitely not MAGA."
"The correct label would be 'FED-wing' whether some of them know it or not," she opined. "Is this entrapment operation just going to continue marching all around in their stupid masks?"
"If you're not making money, you're not having impact," said ArcTern Ventures managing partner Murray McCaig.
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TechCrunch Mobility is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Welcome to TechCrunch Mobility – the same weekly newsletter you’ve been reading, but with a new name and a few changes. Don’t worry, this […]
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Texas has been in the middle of a freeze and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been asking residents to conserve power so as to avoid an outage.
People’s lives, health and property are at risk. Newsweek reported that in February 2021, when Cruz flew to Cancun in the middle of a freeze and widespread power outage (and blamed his daughters), there were 246 related deaths. Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar later said that the financial loss likely fell between $80 billion and $130 billion.
But Sen. Ted Cruz thinks it’s a laughing matter. He tweeted advice to his constituents to wrap pipes, cover plants, stay off icy roads and be safe. Then he added, “And, if it gets too damn cold, join me in Cancun!”
I noticed he said nothing about providing any help to anyone who might need it.
The chair of the Senate Finance Committee said legislation advanced Thursday by the GOP-controlled House Budget Committee is a "backroom scheme" to cut Social Security and Medicare outside of the regular political process, a warning that came as Republicans signaled their intention to attach the bill to a must-pass government funding measure.
"Republicans in Congress know their plans to gut Americans' Social Security and Medicare benefits are deeply unpopular, so they are resorting to schemes that short-circuit the legislative process, rushing through cuts to Americans' earned benefits," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said of the Fiscal Commission Act, which passed out of the House Budget Committee in a largely party-line vote.
Three Democrats—Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.)—joined Republicans in supporting the bill, which now heads to the full House.
Wyden argued Thursday that "the term fiscal commission' is the ultimate Washington buzzword, and it translates to trading away Americans' earned benefits in a secretive, closed-door process."
Welcome, folks, to TechCrunch Week in Review (WiR), a digest of the past few days in tech happenings. As I write this, snow’s gracing New York City — an increasingly rare treat thanks to our changing climate. And that feels fitting in light of the Apple Vision Pro’s imminent launch. After all, one of the […]
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The Biden-Harris 2024 campaign is launching its first major policy assault against Donald Trump, timed to coincide with the forced birth movement holding their annual protest against women’s bodily autonomy. The Biden-Harris campaign announced that it’s putting abortion rights center stage next week, taking the message specifically to critical swing states.
“Donald Trump is the reason that more than 1 in 3 American women of reproductive age don’t have the freedom to make their own health care decisions,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said, referencing the Trump-packed Supreme Court. “In 2024, a vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is a vote to restore Roe, and a vote for Donald Trump is a vote to ban abortion across the country.”
I've long thought that Judge Winebox has had enough dispensation from the Murdochs. She lost her own show over her 2020 election lies, and they put her on "The Five" to fulfill her contract and also "prove" they can't be "bullied by the LEFT" into having actual sane people in their host chairs (see Laura Ingraham, also).
And now she's trying to teach history.
JEANINE PIRRO (CO-HOST): I just want to say something about the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. It came here in 1886. At that time, we had an immigration law in this country where you came here and you had to be on Ellis Island. You had to be screened and you had to be documented. You had to be tested. You had to be vaccinated and you could only come in if you had a sponsor or if you were self-reliant, okay? This guy doesn't know his history. The truth is, if you understood the background of the Statue of Liberty, it's a symbol of freedom and democracy. It doesn't mean, "Everybody just show up and we'll take care of you."
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The pendulum swung hard in the direction of B2B startups over the last decade — but the thing with pendulums is that eventually they swing back.
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OK, maybe Trump should have won by more than 51% Tuesday night in Iowa. But he still beat his nearest competitor by thirty points. That’s not enough for his cultists.
From Wired:
“After it was reported that President Trump won every county in Iowa tonight, Democrat shenanigans ensued and now it’s being reported that Johnson County in Iowa, which is a Biden +40 county, flipped to Nikki Haley by ONE VOTE,” Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has been embraced by Trump, posted on X in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Other Trump supporters on far-right online platforms also claimed electoral conspiracies, even though Trump won 51 percent of the vote in Iowa, with Florida governor Ron DeSantis a distant second at 21 percent and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley in third place at 19 percent, according to results shared by the Iowa Republican Party and AP’s election tracker.
…
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Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. Alongside our regularly scheduled news bits, I’ll be testing out some recurring segments and features — so if you do (or don’t) like what you see, let me know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your […]
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Self quantification is the trend that just keeps on going. There’s an ever-expanding world of wellness wearables and fitness trackers targeting consumers with shiny promises of the personal value to be had if they monitor stuff like their heart rate, activity and sleep — from smart watches, bands and rings, to smart scales, CGMs (continuous […]
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Update: The launch is now scheduled for January 18. The below text has been updated to reflect the new launch date. Axiom Space is gearing up to launch its third fully private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. Here’s all you need to know. The crew of four will take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space […]
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It seems MSNBC's Joy Reid ruffled some feathers over on the Fox not-news propaganda channel with some comments she made last night. While discussing Haley's third place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Reid said this about why she lost:
During MSNBC’s live coverage of the caucuses, Reid spoke with her network colleagues about Haley’s chances going forward, and she doubted Haley’s ability to succeed by blaming bigotry within the GOP.
It’s the elephant in the room. She’s still a brown lady that’s got to try to win in a party that is deeply anti-immigrant, and which accepts the notion you can say immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. She’s getting birthered by Donald Trump, and I don’t care how much the donor class likes her — which will ramp up a lot the better she does in New Hampshire — it’s still a challenge.
I don’t see how she becomes the nominee of that party with Donald Trump still around. I can’t picture it happening. Maybe it could happen. Ron DeSantis’ only argument for staying in it is he’s the white guy, that he can still make the appeal to white evangelicals.
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Hi there, Happy Upside Down Day! In this episode, we show MSNBC anchor Katy Tur at a bowling alley allegedly talking to Democrats who claim that they "want someone other than Biden" to vote for so they'll switch their votes to Nikki Haley, who would cut their Social Security checks rather than tax the rich in a New York second. Let's face it: all of the GOP candidates would cut your grandma into a thousand pieces just because they hate your Meemaw.
President Joe Biden is once again getting a raw deal, which might be due to poor messaging. I don't know. I've never seen anything like this, and I'm so old I remember when they invented the wheel.
Regarding the poor messaging, If Trump brought in Biden's job numbers, he would be plastering "JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!" across social media for days. He would not stop bragging about it in between court appearances.
One woman claims to be "heavily left," even though she appears to be all in for Haley. Meanwhile, and I mention this for no reason, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is blaring in the background. The woman noted that Haley would be more open to negotiating with the Israel/Hamas sides, and I don't know what to do with that. For example, a very close conservative family member loves that Biden is pro-Israel. I do not understand where this woman is coming from unless she's pro-Hamas, and let's hope that isn't true. WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT? HOLY FCK.
The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click TechCrunch Mobility — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Hi folks, I’m back from CES 2024 and ready to share what I saw and heard! But first, big changes are coming to this weekly transportation […]
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MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell argued that Fox News refuses to air his advertisements because he hired former employee Lou Dobbs.
Last week, Lindell said Fox News had "canceled" his ads and admitted that he owes the company $7.8 million.
"As soon as their account is paid, we would be happy to accept their advertising," a Fox News spokesperson told Raw Story Friday.
"It has nothing to do with paying bills," Lindell insisted to Steve Bannon on Monday. "And I actually have been reaching out to Suzanne Scott, the CEO of Fox. I'll be reaching out to her today to find out what this is all about."
"I'm getting reports from my media buyers that they offered money on Wednesday to actually test one of our new ads," he continued. "And that's when we found out we were shut down, and so it has nothing to do with money. We're well within our credit limits there."
Instead, Lindell offered an alternate theory to explain his dispute with Fox News.
"I believe it's because we brought Lou Dobbs over to Lindell TV, and that happened on a Monday," he speculated. "This happened on a Wednesday. We have the great lineup over at Lindell TV, and his first interview was Donald Trump."
Microsoft evidently envisions Copilot, the umbrella brand for its portfolio of AI-powered, content-generating technologies, becoming a significant future revenue line-item. And that’s perhaps not far off base; according to the company, more than 40% of the Fortune 100 participated in its Copilot early access program. But given the enormous cost of running GenAI models in […]
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Elon Musk’s Optimus humanoid robot from Tesla is doing more stuff — this time folding a t-shirt on a table in a development facility. The robot looks to be fairly competent when it comes to this task, but moments after Musk shared the video, he also shared some follow-up information which definitely dampens some of […]
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Controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't seem that keen on House Speaker Mike Johnson over his support for a bill to fund the government. There is no shock here; after all, Marge is a principal player of the Chaos Crew, and their main feature is to create dysfunction. Greene told Fox's Maria Bartiromo that she would do everything possible, including launching an initiative to remove Johnson as House Speaker. And all of this would be to stop a bipartisan deal on border security. The Georgia Republican launched a conspiracy theory that will make you want to slam your head into the wall.
"You said you were willing to go to the mat and vacate the chair, fire House Speaker Mike Johnson if, in fact, he agreed to another continuing resolution," Bartiromo said. "Where are you on this?"
"No, I said that, if he made that border deal where -- if he -- if he passes that Senate border deal or so-called border deal -- it's really an amnesty deal where Democrats are going to bring in millions and millions of illegals and turn them into Democrat voters," Marge insisted without offering proof. "That's their plan, is to replace Americans with millions and millions of illegal aliens. And it upset me so much that this is the deal that Republicans and the Senate are making. And they want to do this in exchange for $60 billion more for Ukraine."
If you at least graduated from the 5th grade, you could see biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and multiply-charged Donald Trump's breakup coming from a mile away. They were headed for a collision, and it's happening. MAGA was caught by surprise, though. To a narcissist, boundaries are a challenge. For sure, that line will be stomped on. Vivek and Lumpy are both narcissists, so it's been interesting to watch. No, I'm not a psychiatrist, but it's as if they have their mental health condition written across their foreheads.
Trump must have seen the video that's been circulating where the GOP nominee hopeful is seen begging a Trump supporter for her vote. Warning: The video will induce cringing:
CES has long been a launchpad for innovation and cutting-edge technology. However, at this year’s event, there was a conspicuous void: the near-absence of sex tech. Despite being an industry that caters to a universal human experience, sex tech has always had an uneasy association with CES. This year, its conspicuous absence begs the question: […]
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The extra half billion in our nation’s coffers is thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. That act gave money to the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats.
From HuffPost:
Using new funding earmarked for the IRS to target wealthy and corporate tax cheats, the IRS since mid-2022 has collected more than $520 million from about 1,600 households with income of more than $1 million and that are known to have unpaid tax bills of more than $250,000.
MAGA Republicans hate this good news for the country and President Joe Biden and seem willing to tank the economy and/or shut down the government to stop it.
Last year, a deal between Biden and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to raise the debt ceiling slashed enforcement funding by $20 billion to $24.2 billion. Now, a new debt ceiling deal between Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) reportedly speeds up those cuts.
Aside from millionaire tax holdouts, the agency is cracking down on a range of fishy corporate structures that ultrawealthy individuals, hedge funds, large law firms and multinational companies often deploy to avoid reporting taxable income and transactions.
from Latest articles from Crooks and Liars
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As Heather put it, the only people Donald Trump was supposed to serve as president were the American people. Still, Lumpy admitted to Fox's Bret Baier that he was "doing services" for foreign governments, so it was OK that he made a fortune from foreign governments. Trump violated the emoluments clause, and now he's acting like it wasn't a big deal. It's there for a reason.
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, demanded that Trump return that money over his "stunning violation" of the Constitution. Raskin appeared on Chris Hayes's show and will not let this slide. As Hayes noted, Raskin penned a letter to Trump to request that he immediately return the money.
"We want it back. He's not allowed to keep a dime of it without coming to Congress first," Raskin said. "We know of $7.8 million that belongs to the American people and not in Donald Trump's pockets."
"He never came to Congress," he continued. "They've been covering up for this for seven years. When we finally got the Supreme Court to rule for us, then the district court to do an order, we had four months of compliance before Chairman Comer shut it down."
Raskin explains that Trump didn't deny receiving the millions of dollars. Instead, because of the ex-president's narcissism, he bragged about it. Meanwhile, Raskin explains, Republicans are focused on impeaching President Joe Biden for the same type of thing, but they have no proof to back that up.
There are Republicans foolish enough to think they can deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination his cult is determined to deliver to him-- even if it's behind bars. Yet, even if they're somehow able to pull it off, if Nikki Haley wins independents allowed to vote in the GOP primary and the few-ish sane Republicans left (call it the "McCain path"), she has to hold her home state of South Carolina.
And you may think, no problem(!), she's won there twice as Governor, I'd like to introduce you to Marco Rubio in Florida in 2016. The power of The Cult is strong with the Trumpers.
In this video, Cliff Schecter and Bob Cesca discuss Trump's threat to the GOP if he's NOT nominated. In fact, he may be a greater threat to them if he's not the nominee (not the rest of us, that's a whole different story).
Cliff and Matt have some inside info on what he's said and what he might do. Check out this MUST WATCH video on how Trump might DESTROY the GOP.
As the House Oversight Committee continued its debate over Republican efforts to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress, the hearing has frequently disintegrated into incoherence. Part of that came from Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who both insisted that the president’s son be immediately arrested and claimed Democrats were using “white privilege” to protect the president’s son.
Unfortunately for Mace, that claim got blasted by Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and when Mace tried to defend her statement, her claims were eviscerated by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Soon after Mace accused Democrats of “white privilege,” Crockett blasted her, saying that Mace had no place speaking about white privilege and that it was “a spit in the face” for Mace “to talk about what white privilege looks like.”
Mace took umbrage at being called out and defended herself by saying that she had served on the former Civil Rights Subcommittee. She followed that up with a textbook demonstration of being racially tone-deaf.
[embed eid="58742" /]
After a year of people throwing money at AI companies, investors are now looking for startups that are more solid and viable.
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Hertz said in an SEC filing that it would be selling 20,000 of its EVs and replacing them with fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
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Low-code dev platforms have gained momentum in recent years, in large part because they promise to shorten what’s otherwise typically a lengthy app development cycle. According to data from analytics firm GlobalData, there was a fivefold increase in VC funding into low-code dev platforms from 2021 to 2022. Demand has tapered off a bit since […]
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Tim Schaecker, a TikToker with 8.8 million followers and a member of the German boy band Elevator Boys, officially launched today a new social networking app in an effort to encourage other content creators to connect with their communities in a deeper way and rethink social media and the creator economy. CNDO (pronounced “condo”) enables […]
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BlackRock has yet again cut the value of its holding in Byju’s, slashing the implied valuation of the Indian startup to $1 billion from $22 billion in early 2022, according to disclosures made by the asset manager. At the end of October last year, BlackRock said it valued Byju’s shares at about $209.6 apiece, down […]
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In probably one of the most anti-American remarks, Donald Trump admitted this week that he wants the economy to crash during the next year because it will help him secure the 2024 presidential election. That's shocking, but this is the same guy who launched a social media platform solely to demean his successor daily. We knew he wanted America to fail because it would help him, but now he said it out loud. Even worse, his supporters don't care that their candidate would rather see this country burn to the ground if he doesn't get his way.
Bidenomics is working, and the praise has been pouring in from both sides of the aisle. Of course, Aunt Lulu and Uncle Dork think they're starving with Joe Biden at the helm, but the data doesn't lie. And with Trump in charge, we had to deal with empty shelves at the grocery stores. There was no toilet paper. The GDP fell by 8.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020. Refrigerated trucks were being used as morgues, and all because Trump bungled his response to the pandemic.
And Trump left office in disgrace with the worst job numbers since Herbert Hoover. That's a fact. And that's a shame since he said:
The Maine House voted 80-60 along party lines to reject a Republican effort to impeach the state's Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, over her decision to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot. Donald Trump will not be taking any victory laps today. Sad!
ABC News reports:
Bellows, who watched the entire proceeding from the gallery, vowed to abide by any legal ruling on her decision to keep Trump off Maine's March 5 primary ballot, which is under appeal in Maine Superior Court.
Republicans are furious over Bellows' conclusion that the GOP frontrunner shouldn't be on the ballot. They argued that her decision disenfranchised the more than 300,000 voters in Maine who chose Trump in the last election.
GOP Rep. Michael Soboleski, of Phillips, called the secretary’s action “election interference of the highest order” and a fellow Republican, Rep. James Thorne, of Carmel, said it “does nothing but further divide the political banner between the parties, and indeed the people of the state of Maine.”
“There has been no conviction in a court of law. She is not a judge. She is not a jury. And I believe that the people feel absolutely disenfranchised,” added Rep. Katrina Smith, a Republican from Palermo.
But they had faced long odds in seeking retribution against the Democrat.
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In a sea of AI-enabled gadgets at CES, the rabbit r1 (all lowercase, they insist) stands out not just for its high-vis paint job and unique form factor, but because of its dedication to the bit. The company is hoping you’ll carry a second device around to save yourself the trouble of opening your phone […]
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From the looks of it, Turning Point USA's Charlie KIrk is not a fan of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Is he not MAGA enough? Is he too MAGA? Kirk had harsh words for "coward" and "fraud" Rep. Johnson over the spending negotiations. I'm going to go out on a limb to suggest Kirk would like to see the federal government shut down. We already know what Donald Trump wants to happen. Of course, Kirk is mad that a shutdown will be averted. MAGA doesn't fix things. MAGA only knows how to break things.
"It's this elitist garbage," Kirk said. "Oh, we're doing a laddered CR and this add-on amendment process."
"I guess, cut the crap, man," he continued. "Okay? I've been around for 11 years. I've met many politicians. I know a fraud when I see one."
"Cut it out," Kirk said. "You couldn't broker a deal. You start shaking like a leaf when you get into a room with Chuck Schumer."
"Yes, sir. Yes, sir," he continued. Whatever they want, they get. They're all praising this deal."
"And then you come out, and you're like, well, maybe just let me take a little victory in the press conference about adding amendments and laddered CRs," he added. "Enough. Okay?"
I hope that makes him feel better. No, actually, I don't care how he feels.
Embattled rapist Florida GOP Chairman Christian Ziegler is almost certain to be removed from office today and end the months-long saga. At least that's the hope for the Florida Republican Party. It's also likely his dismissal will be met with a lawsuit as he hasn't been charged with a crime as yet.
The vote is to be held at 1 pm.
Source: Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Republican Party of Florida is scheduled to hold a special meeting Monday to vote on removing Chairman Christian Ziegler and select a new leader as police investigate a rape accusation against him, a vote that comes the week before Gov. Ron DeSantis competes in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucus.
The party suspended Ziegler last month and demanded his resignation, saying he can’t effectively lead during a critical election year with the allegations, which Ziegler denies, swirling around him. Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and other Republican leaders have called on Ziegler to step down, but he has refused.
...
The meeting is expected to be held behind closed doors at a Tallahassee conference center.
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In late December, The New York Times sued OpenAI and its close collaborator and investor, Microsoft, for allegedly violating copyright law by training generative AI models on Times’ content. Today, OpenAI gave a public response, claiming — unsurprisingly — that The Times’ lawsuit is meritless. In a letter published this afternoon on OpenAI’s official blog, […]
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Scalise will be out of commission for the next month, undergoing an autologous stem cell transplant to help his body produce normal red blood cells again after his cancer treatment. This will take the Republicans down to just 218 on January 21 when Rep. Bil Johnson leaves the House.
Source: CNN
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise will undergo a stem cell transplant, his office announced on Friday, which is expected to keep him out of Washington and working remotely until February.
In August 2023, the Louisiana Republican announced that he had been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer and had started treatment.
At the start of the new year, Republicans control just 220 seats while Democrats control 213, a narrow majority that means the House GOP can afford only a few defections on party-line priorities. That majority is poised to shrink even further by the end of the month with Ohio GOP Rep. Bill Johnson set to resign on January 21 to take a new job as president of Youngstown State University.
“Last month, Leader Scalise successfully completed induction chemotherapy and had a positive response. It has now been determined he is eligible for an autologous stem cell transplant,” the statement from Scalise’s office said.
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The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free. Hey-o! Howdy readers and welcome back to The Station, your weekly newsletter on all things transportation. I hope you enjoyed the New Year! I appreciated a […]
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Carta, an ambitious 12-year-old Silicon Valley outfit, has gone through numerous iterations over time, originally inviting investors, startups, and employees to use its software to manage their cap tables and later aspiring to evolve into a “private stock market for companies,” as founder Henry Ward once told TechCrunch. As he explained back in 2019: “Now […]
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Now, imagine the campaign that decides it would be a good idea to have the candidate say, “Oops! Got it wrong then, but trust me now when I say that someone who has ‘the wrong policies’ is as equally bad as someone who ‘will sell the soul of this country.’”
So Gov. Sammiches has a few regrets, according to the ad, but doesn’t regret everything:
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said on “Axios on HBO” that the only thing he regretted about prepping former President Donald Trump for debates during his 2020 re-election campaign was contracting COVID-19.
“The only regret I have about that is I caught COVID when I was doing it,” Christie said when asked if he had any misgivings about his role in the campaign.
What a maroon.
Anyway, Christie says he will not vote if it comes down to the guy with policies he disagrees with, or the guy who he says will destroy the gubmint. Principles!
CES 2024 is almost upon us, and a team of TechCrunch reporters and experts will be on the ground in Las Vegas to give you the biggest news out of the consumer electronics show. Though CES’s influence has ebbed and flowed over the years, we’re still expecting a bunch of announcements, especially when it comes […]
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After a mediocre 2023, investors are optimistic about exit and M&A activity picking back up in 2024. Some think we will see the IPO market bounce back.
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Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Wouldn’t a bitcoin spot ETF approval be nice?
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OpenAI plans to launch a store for GPTs, custom apps based on its text-generating AI models (e.g. GPT-4), sometime in the coming week. In an email viewed by TechCrunch, OpenAI said that developers building GPTs will have to review the company’s updated usage policies and GPT brand guidelines to ensure that their GPTs are compliant […]
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Trump gives an interview to Breitbart, and Fox Business Network's Stuart Varney and Lauren Simonetti dutifully report on it as though the nonsense Trump was blathering is fact. Too bad neither of them could keep a straight face while they were doing it.
VARNEY: Now this. Donald Trump says he's going to make a play for deep blue states this year. Lauren, which states is he going to try to flip red?
SIMONETTI: Democratic strongholds like New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, also Virginia and New Mexico. It's going to be tough, but Donald Trump told Breitbart he's going to make a “heavy play to try to flip those states.
For New York he says he might rent out Madison Square Garden Stuart, for a big Trump-style rally. He said, he mentioned Lee Zeldin specifically, he said he's really encouraged by how close he came to winning the governorship of New York and since then things have only gotten worse with the migrant crisis.
So the question is, I mean, can New Yorkers or Minnesotans flip for Trump this year?
VARNEY: If they flip for trump in New York, that would signal a revolution, in my opinion, but, it's not out of the question.
SIMONETTI: Hey, I mean -- okay. I doubt it, but it could happen. He's going to make a heavy play.
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The total amount “lost” during 2023 from security incidents was almost $2 billion.
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint alleging that SpaceX illegally fired eight employees who wrote and distributed an open letter with workplace concerns. Circulated in June 2022, the open letter called out how SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s public behavior was harming the company’s reputation. At the time, Business Insider alleged […]
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Yes. I know. It is ridiculous, even for Fox. It transcends the concept of "freak show". It is mesmerising in the same way a 50-car pileup is mesmerizing.
It is Sybil the Soothsayer from Network.
It is Jesse Watters' whackjob relative -- the one they keep in the attic except on special occasions -- wearing a lacquered fright wig she fished out of Salena Zito's discard pile. And everyone involved was drunk.
Judges would accept any or all of these as valid answers on the "WT actual F happened on Fox News last night?" political aptitude test.
However, two things.
In this column, I detail where things currently stand with the PERM process and discuss the changes you should look out for that may impact PERM.
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Moms for Liberty is against rights for the LGBTQ community, but their co-founder Bridget Ziegler and her hubs, Christian Ziegler, approve of threeways -- for themselves. As if things couldn't get worse for Christian Ziegler, whose role with the Florida GOP was demoted to a salary of $1 and no power after he refused to resign, he's rolling in the New Year with a third search warrant coming his way over whether he shared the videos of the alleged rape. That would be listed under the crime of video voyeurism.
The Herald-Tribune reports:
Sarasota Police filed an application for a third search warrant on Dec. 8 seeking records from Ziegler's Instagram account. Two previous search warrants sought his cell phone and Google account records.
A Sarasota police detective wrote in the search warrant affidavit for Instagram records that she believes "probable cause exists to show (Zeigler) has utilized Instagram to commit the crime of Video Voyeurism."
The search warrant affidavit provides more information about a video Ziegler took of his Oct. 2 sexual encounter with a woman who accused him of rape.
Ziegler was interviewed by detectives on Nov. 2 in his attorney Derek Byrd's office.
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When news broke last year that AI heavyweight OpenAI and Axel Springer had reached a financial agreement and partnership, it seemed to bode well for harmony between folks who write words, and tech companies that use them to help create and train artificial intelligence models. At the time OpenAI had also come to an agreement […]
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The latest non-troversy regarding Green Day's performance at ABC's New Year's Rockin' Eve reminds us that MAGA (a) doesn't listen to Green Day and (b) are a bunch of snowflakes.
The band's New Year's Eve rendition of their song "American Idiot" (which was about right-wingers to begin with) modified the lyrics of the song from "I’m not a part of a redneck agenda" to "I’m not a part of the MAGA agenda."
Which MAKES IT POLITICAL YOU GUYS.
They just don't get it.
Kate Cox followed the law. When she found out her fetus could not survive and that giving birth would endanger her future fertility, she went to a judge seeking an exemption from Texas’ strict abortion restrictions. The judge granted her request and granted protection to an OB/GYN for performing the procedure.
But Paxton, who is supposed to be upholding the law, not persecuting people for following it, threatened to prosecute any doctor or hospital that carried out Cox’s abortion. Then he got the Texas Supreme Court to block the ruling. Fortunately, Cox had the means to have the procedure done out of state.
But wait, there's more. Paxon has been charged with securities fraud, is under FBI investigation for corruption and he faces a bar disciplinary for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He was also impeached by Texas’ Republican House of Representatives, though acquitted by the Senate. He retaliated by saying he plans to sue the impeachment managers.
California Governor Gavin Newsom continues to be on the best surrogates for President Biden, as well as a possible leading contender for the 2028 Democratic Nomination. But before I get ahead of myself, let's recap his amazing year!
He started off with a brilliant initiative called the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, which is a non-partisan alliance designed to protect access for their constituents and strengthen the ability of people in anti-abortion states to get care. Thus far, only Democratic leaders have joined.
Then he took a strong stance against pharmacies that plan to deny women access to mifepristone, cancelling a contract with Walgreens.
Continuing his battle to fight horrible laws, Newsom set up a new political organization designed to fight abortion laws, loosened gun regulations, curriculum restrictions and other right wing proposals.
He took on DeSantis after Ron pulled one of his migrant stunts, dropping a flight of South American migrants in Sacramento with no warning.
Then Gavin Newsom took on Sean Hannity in a FOX (not) News interview.
There is backhanded insult that I personally love to use: Have the day you deserve.
In Trump's case, I hope he has the attorneys he deserves.
And by that, I mean I hope he has attorneys that are just as offensive, dumb, rude and ineffective as he is. And it appears my wish is coming true.
Let's start with Alina Habba, the parking garage lawyer who got fined a whopping $1 million dollars for her ridiculous lawsuit against Hillary Clinton that was dismissed in 2022.
Then a little known lawyer defending Trump in the Georgia case declared the indictments faulty. Uh huh, ok.
Then we had a little lawyer vs lawyer attacking on CNN, with former Trump lawyer Timothy Parlatore dissing new Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina on live tv.
One of Trump's attorneys even recused himself from the Mar-A-Lago case!
Then reports came out about fears inside Trump's legal world, with fears of backstabbing and moles.
Back to Alina Habba, saying the quiet part out loud. Yikes.
At a time when we're witnessing Republicans frothing at the mouth in the hopes of eradicating rights for the LGBTQ+ community, country music legend Dolly Parton shines, reminding us that we are all human. And aside from being incredibly talented and fabulously wealthy, she's a lot like us. No, really. And she claps back at Republicans in her way, whether intentional or not, with a bit of shame thrown in for good measure.
"I've got transgender people. I've got gays. I've got lesbians. I've got drunks. I've got drug addicts — all within my own family." she said in November. "I know and love them all, and I do not judge. And I just see how broken-hearted they get over certain things, and I know how real they are."
"I know how important this is to them. That's who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton, you know, the way people know me," she continued. "If there's something to be judged, that is God's business. But we are all God's children, and how we are is who we are."
Dolly Parton added in the most Dolly Parton way possible: "I just want everybody to be treated good."
She recently helped a dying man fulfill a wish by serenading him over the phone.
