The good:
Troy Jackson
has effectively secured the Democratic nomination in the crucial Maine
Senate race, winning the support of a majority of the state delegates
who will officially nominate a candidate next weekend.
While
they are not legally bound to support him, nearly two-thirds of the 601
delegates have committed to voting for Jackson at that statewide
convention. Jackson dominated the county-level meetings this weekend that selected those delegates, with two rivals falling far behind — and one of them, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, dropping out of the race partway through the process Sunday.
The party’s statewide convention in Bangor, Maine, next weekend will cap a tumultuous scramble to replace Graham Platner, who won the primary but dropped out this month after POLITICO reported that a woman he previously dated said he forced her to have sex with him. Platner denied the allegations.
A progressive 5th generation logger from the far-northern corner of Allagash, Maine, Jackson has had a long career in organizing progressive activists and ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who had endorsed him in his gubernatorial race earlier this year.
The candidate will have less than four months to spin up a major battleground Senate campaign against GOP Sen. Susan Collins, the only Senate Republican running for reelection in a state carried by former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Jackson
turned his attention to the general election at a Sunday morning rally
ahead of the delegate meeting in York County, where he secured the
support of enough delegates to cross the 50 percent threshold.
“Whether
you supported me from the beginning, or are still deciding, or support
another candidate, there is a place for you in this movement,” he told a
few dozen supporters in a school parking lot in Sanford, Maine, echoing
what has been a familiar line in his speeches since entering the Senate
race. “Because we’re not going to defeat Susan Collins by making this movement smaller. There’s no way that that’s ever going to work.”
Bellows dropped out of the race just minutes before voting began on Sunday and encouraged Democrats to coalesce behind Jackson...
The process need not be dragged out any longer. It's time to get on with the business of defeating the useless Susan Collins and edge closer to flipping the Senate. No time to waste.
The bad:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents recently have been
told that the FBI will no longer investigate claims of assault against
the federal officers, according to a report by The New York Times.
On
Thursday, FBI managers received written notice of the change, sources
told the Times, and some ICE agents throughout the country were informed
by their FBI counterparts.
In
incidents where ICE agents have been involved in fatal shootings, the
FBI under the Trump administration has been tasked with determining
whether the agents were assaulted before opening fire. But evidence
revealed during those investigations could later be used in civil rights
investigations or prosecutions against ICE agents.
The new
guidance would likely mean Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of
ICE, would investigate such assault claims by their own agents,
according to the Times. Allowing DHS to handle those investigations
could lead to less accountability for immigration agents, sources told
the NYT.
Since DHS does not have the jurisdiction to investigate civil rights
violations, the policy change could lessen the likelihood that ICE
agents who shoot unarmed people would be investigated for breaking
federal law...
This amounts to legal immunity for brutalizing and killer ICE thugs. Not that lawless, Korrupt Ka$h Patel would have it any other way.
The ugly:
Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate,
whose social media empire promoting wealth, male dominance and misogyny
has made them among the world’s most polarizing internet personalities,
were arrested Saturday in Miami as British authorities sought their
extradition on rape and sex trafficking charges.
The brothers were
taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service on a sealed warrant,
agency spokesperson Brady McCarron told The Associated Press, placing
the United States at the center of an international legal saga that has
stretched from Romania to Britain.
British prosecutors announced Saturday that they were seeking the brothers’ extradition on charges alleging they raped and trafficked women between 2010 and 2017.
The
dual U.S. and British citizens moved to Romania in 2016. They were
arrested there in 2022, accused of participating in schemes to lure
women for sexual exploitation. They denied those allegations and the
Romanian case hasn’t gone forward because of legal and procedural
problems.
Last year, they were allowed to leave Romania and flew to Florida on a private jet.
The
brothers are expected to appear in Miami’s federal court early next
week, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to on the
condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations.
The
pending charges in the United Kingdom accused the brothers of abusing
women in an area north of London, where they grew up. Their lawyers had
said they denied the allegations.
Joseph McBride, an attorney representing the Tate brothers, said in a
phone interview Saturday evening that he has not been able to speak
with his clients but called the new charges out of the U.K. “filth and
slander” intended to derail defamation lawsuits filed by the brothers in
the U.S.
“They’re pulling out all the stops to make sure these guys never get their day in court,” McBride said.
“We
are confident that once a competent judge sees the facts, and once the
Department of Justice confronts this egregious abuse of its own
authority, Andrew and Tristan Tate will walk free. America does not do
Britain’s political dirty work.”
Andrew Tate, 39, first reached a mainstream audience as a contestant on
the U.K. reality television show “Big Brother” in 2016. He was removed
from the show when a video surfaced that appeared to show Tate
assaulting a woman. He and his brother Tristan Tate, 38, are vocal
supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Of course, these sleazebags are vocal supporters of the adjudicated rapist sexual abuser MF. Of course, their mouthpiece thinks the fix will be in for them because of that. Let's see how corrupt the MF's "Justice" Department is in how they handle this.
