Texas Republicans threaten to arrest Democrats who left state to block redistricting bill
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New York Post
a few seconds ago
- New York Post
Don't whine about federal budget cuts, lefties — put your money where your mouths are
Before politics overwhelmed the word, the primary meaning of 'liberal' was 'generous.' President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have given political liberals a chance to take that meaning back — by opening their wallets to show just how much they value NPR, PBS and other programs defunded by the GOP. There's no shortage of funds on the left. Laurene Powell Jobs, the mega-rich backer of The Atlantic, has a net worth estimated at above $11 billion a year ago and believed to be even higher today. George Soros, at 94, has a fortune in the vicinity of $7 billion, with billions more in his Open Society Foundation. Bill Gates has about $115 billion, his ex-wife Melinda around $30 billion. Any one of these left-leaning billionaires could single-handedly make up the $535 million that NPR, PBS and local stations were getting annually from taxpayers before Congress zeroed out the subsidies. If half a billion a year is too much for one zillionaire, a half-dozen of them — or more — could share the burden without feeling a pinch. But are wealthy liberals willing to put their money where their mouths are? Citing Michal Heiplik, president of the public-media analytics organization Contributor Development Partnership, The New York Times reports PBS and NPR have reaped a windfall from small-dollar donors in recent months, with 120,000 new supporters stepping up to give some $20 million. Overall, donations are running $70 million above last year. And what works for PBS and NPR will work for humanitarian programs formerly funded as part of USAID as well, though the cuts to be made up there are bigger: Congress has eliminated about $8 billion in funding for USAID and other foreign-aid efforts, according to the Cato Institute. That's a lot of money — but not a dime of it has disappeared. After all, where does government get its money in the first place? Washington could only give to foreign aid or nonprofit broadcasting what it took — or borrowed — from the American people in the first place. When government doesn't spend money, society doesn't lose any of its resources: They just stay with the taxpayers, and the middlemen in government don't get their cut. That, for liberals, is a big part of the problem. The Democratic Party depends on shunting everyone's tax (or debt) dollars into the hands of bureaucrats, one of the party's most loyal constituencies. It's not just NPR and PBS that have been publicly financed — it's also liberalism as a movement. Bureaucrats in government, in government-supported nonprofits and other less-than-fully-private parts of the 'private sector' may work for organizations that are officially nonpartisan, but their campaign-giving heavily favors Democrats. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! Their employers may be nonpartisan in theory, but the employees have a strong partisan tilt, and personnel is policy: Any organization is only a collection of people. USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were both born in the Kennedy-Johnson years, at mid-century liberalism's zenith. Liberalism had been dominant for so long — starting with the New Deal and Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration — that liberal intellectuals and policymakers came to think of themselves as more than just one side of American politics. They claimed to speak for everyone, as if a single party could define what it meant to be nonpartisan. But even then, the conservative movement was taking off while the Democrats were being dragged to the left by young radicals who wanted 'acid, amnesty and abortion.' Start your day with all you need to know Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The agencies and programs the Republican Congress has defunded were never as neutral as they claimed to be. And as liberals, under the influence of the left, adopted a more adversarial attitude toward America's past and present, it only became more obvious that the agencies and public-private partnerships they ran represented only one side of any argument. But this doesn't mean liberals can't continue to fund everything they funded before. Now they just have to do it with their own money. Some centrist liberals rightly see that as an opportunity, not an imposition: When I told a friend at a government-supported think tank I was sorry for the professional upheaval he was going though, he noted that his institution had in fact been coasting by ever since the end of the Cold War. He said it needed a renewed sense of mission, and having to raise private funds would give it the impetus it had been lacking for decades. Republicans aren't worried NPR or PBS will move further left if they court progressive billionaires, considering what little presence conservatives had on those networks already. But if they're smart, the broadcasters will see the loss of government funding as a spur to court a wider spectrum of support — and to put to the test what it means to be nonpartisan. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review and editor-at-large of The American Conservative.
NBC News
a minute ago
- NBC News
Pam Bondi orders grand jury probe of Obama admin review of 2016 election
Attorney General Pam Bondi has directed DOJ prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation of whether Obama administration officials committed federal crimes when they assessed Russia's actions during the 2016 election, a senior Trump administration official said. The move comes after the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, claimed in a White House press conference last month that top Obama administration officials carried out a 'treasonous conspiracy' against former President Trump. Gabbard said she was sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department. A former senior DOJ official condemned the move as 'a dangerous political stunt.' And a former senior national security official pointed out that multiple past reviews, including ones conducted by Republicans, found no such crimes. "There's no logical, rational basis for this," said the official, who asked not to be named. The senior Trump Administration official said there is no exact timetable for when the grand jury will meet and that it could take months for the proceeding to begin. The news of Bondi's letter was first reported by FOX News. The official said a letter signed by Bondi instructs an unnamed federal prosecutor to begin presenting evidence to a grand jury to secure potential federal indictments. But the letter did not say what the charges would be, who the grand jury will investigate, or where the grand jury will meet. A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Democratic lawmakers have accused the administration of seeking to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein case. Conservative media and influencers have criticized how the administration has handled the case and demand the release of more documents and information. President Trump, Attorney General Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have all been criticized by conservative media and influencers over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and material related to it. The idea that there was a conspiracy by the Obama administration officials against Trump was contradicted by a 2020 bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee review, which found significant evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Then Senator Marco Rubio, the acting chair of the committee at the time, signed off on the report. The plans for a grand jury investigation are the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration designed to rewrite the history 2016 election and seek retribution against those the president accuses of trying to sabotage his first term in the White House. Democratic lawmakers and former senior officials say Trump and his deputies have used the tools of government authority to try to 'rewrite' the history of the 2016 election, seeking to reverse an eight-year-old assessment that Russia waged an information war to boost Trump's candidacy. Trump and his supporters have long claimed that intelligence and law enforcement officials sought to undermine his first term by allegedly overstating Russia's interference in the 2016 election and investigating Trump's aides over their possible contacts with Moscow. They have accused former FBI director James Comey and former CIA director John Brennan of using the probes as a way to undermine Trump. A lawyer for Comey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Comey and Brennan, who is a paid contributor to NBC News and MSNBC, have both denied wrongdoing. The intelligence community's analysis of the 2016 election and subsequent government investigations failed to satisfy the far-right and far-left sides of the American political divide. A probe by special counsel Robert Mueller found that Russia intervened in 2016 to undercut Hillary Clinton. But it did not find evidence thay the Trump team colluded with the Kremlin, as some voices on the left had suggested. At the same time, the special counsel Trump appointed in his first term, John Durham, disappointed far-right activists with his three-year investigation. Durham found no criminal conspiracy among Obama administration officials to fabricate intelligence about Russia's actions in 2016. He also filed no charges against the intelligence officers who oversaw a 2017 assessment that found Russia had tried to skew the election outcome in Trump's favor.
Associated Press
a minute ago
- Associated Press
California could slash 5 GOP US House seats, as Texas moves at Trump's urging to pad GOP margin
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Democrats are considering new political maps that could slash five Republican-held House seats in the liberal-leaning state while bolstering Democratic incumbents in other battleground districts. The move comes in direct response to efforts by Texas Republicans to redraw House districts in order to strengthen the GOP hold on the chamber in 2026. A draft plan that's circulating aims to boost the Democratic margin to 48 of California's 52 congressional seats, according to a source familiar with the plan who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. That's up from the 43 seats the party now holds. It would need approval from lawmakers and voters, who may be skeptical to give it after handing redistricting power to an independent commission years ago. In addition, the proposal would generously pad Democratic margins in districts for competitive seats anchored in Orange County, San Diego County and the Central Valley farm belt, giving Democrats a potential advantage as Texas Republicans move to sway the tissue-thin balance of the House. According to the proposal, districts now held by Republican Reps. Ken Calvert, Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, David Valadao and Doug LaMalfa would see right-leaning voters shaved and Democratic voters boosted in a shift that would make it likely a left-leaning candidate would prevail in each race. In districts held by Democratic Reps. Dave Min, Mike Levin and Derek Tran, the party's edge would be boosted to strengthen their hold on the seats, the source said. Democratic members of California's congressional delegation were briefed on the new map on Monday, according to a person familiar with the meeting who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations. The proposal is being circulated at the same time that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he wants to advance partisan redistricting. He says he won't move ahead if Texas pauses its efforts. Newsom said he'd call a special election for the first week of November. Voters would weigh a new congressional map drawn by the Democratic-controlled Legislature. 'California will not sit by idly and watch this democracy waste away,' Newsom said Monday. — Associated Press writers Tran Nguyen in Sacramento and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed.
