Billy Miller, the Emmy-winning actor who starred on "General Hospital" and "The Young and the Restless" as well as appearing in a number of TV shows and movies, died Friday in Austin, Texas at age 43 while struggling with manic depression.
“The actor was struggling with manic depression when he died,” Miller's manager said in a statement to Variety.
Miller's mother Patricia also released a statement on X about his death.
“He fought a long hard valiant battle with bipolar depression for years,” she wrote. “He did everything he could to control the disease. He loved his family, his friends and his fans but in the end the disease won the fight and he surrendered his life. The other causes of death being told are not true. I wish they were but they just aren’t. We all loved him so much and are desperately trying to deal with our loss. I will have nothing further to say. Thanks for the love and support.”
Miller grew up in Texas and battled a rare medical condition during his childhood that affected the cartilage in his ankles.
He got his start in the entertainment industry when he was signed as a model with Wilhemina, and made the jump to "All My Children" in 2007.
He soon moved to "The Young and the Restless," where he earned three Daytime Emmys for portraying Billy Abbott. Two of the awards were for outstanding supporting actor, and one was for outstanding lead actor.
In 2014, he transitioned to "General Hospital," where he stayed until 2019.
He also had roles on the TV shows "Suits (5 episodes)," “NCIS,” “The Rookie,” “Truth Be Told,” “Major Crimes,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Castle” and “Enormous.”
He had featured roles in Clint Eastwood’s 2014 war drama “American Sniper” and Craig Brewer’s 2016 “Urban Cowboy” TV movie.
Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is a mental health condition characterized by extreme highs and lows in people's moods.
The depression experienced during lows has often led to suicide attempts when not properly treated.
Even when the condition is diagnosed and known, people often stop taking their medications in the months or years between episodes, when everything seems to be fine and they forget what the extremes are like.
There is help for people feeling symptoms of depression and having thoughts of suicide. A suicide hotline is available 24 hours a day by calling or texting 988.
Hunter Biden filed a lawsuit against the IRS on Monday in Washington, D.C., alleging that the agency illegally released his tax information and failed to protect his privacy.
He is seeking through the suit $1,000 per unauthorized disclosure plus attorneys' fees and copies of the documents that were illegally released.
The suit did not name the two IRS whistleblowers responsible for the alleged disclosures, Gary Shapely and Joseph Ziegler, as defendants in the suit even though it was public statements, congressional testimony and interviews by them and their lawyers that caused the disclosures.
Donald Trump appointed Judge Timothy Kelly has been assigned to the case.
Biden has more than enough legal trouble to keep him busy after David Weiss indicted him last week on three gun felonies. Tax charges could also be pending in D.C. or California after a plea deal fell apart in July that would have shielded him from the gun charges, from all jail time, and possibly from any other criminal charges going forward due to an unusual immunity clause that the judge in the case discovered.
“Despite clear warnings from Congress that they were prohibited from disclosing the contents of their testimony to the public in another forum, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s testimony only emboldened their media campaign against Mr. Biden,” the lawsuit states. “And finally, since their public testimony before the House of Representatives on July 19, 2023, the agents have become regular guests on national media outlets and have made new allegations and public statements regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information that were not previously included in their transcripts before the Committee on Ways and Means.”
The case specifically points to a CBS interview in which Shapley allegedly shared that Biden claimed “prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers” as business expenses and that he owed $2.2 million in unpaid taxes.
Shapley's attorneys insisted that he only shared details allowed by law, called the lawsuit a "frivolous smear," and said that the suit was an attempt to “distract from the ever-growing evidence that supports the testimony of the two IRS whistleblowers.”
“These agents’ putative ‘whistleblower’ status cannot and does not shield them from their wrongful conduct in making unauthorized public disclosures that are not permitted by the whistleblower process," the suit read. "In fact, a ‘whistleblower’ is supposed to uncover government misconduct, not the details of that employee’s opinion about the alleged wrongdoing of a private person.”
On Friday before the suit was filed, Shapley's lawyers claimed that Hunter Biden tried to get the DOJ to retaliate against him and Ziegler for making protected disclosures under whistleblower rules.
“Taxpayer privacy laws are written by Congress, and it gave itself authority in those laws to hear disclosures about taxpayer information,” Shapley’s attorney said in a statement.
Weiss was named special counsel in the case after the plea deal fell apart and Weiss suggested that more charges could be brought against Biden.
The immunity clause that was contained within the plea deal could have prevented Weiss and the DOJ from looking into Biden's foreign business dealings and whether President Joe Biden was involved in any of them, and immunized Hunter Biden from any charges resulting from them.
An impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that was launched by the House this week seeks those answers and more. FOX News contributor Jonathan Turley said Monday that the lawsuit by Biden would not get in the way of the impeachment inquiry.
Turley said,
Hunter Biden is screaming at an approaching storm. It's not going to change its course. The fact is that the House has an obligation to see where this evidence goes.
Lawyers for Hunter Biden are reportedly arguing that special prosecutor David Weiss is "barred" from bringing gun charges against Hunter Biden because of a pretrial diversion agreement that was part of a plea deal that fell apart in July, according to the Washington Examiner.
Biden's legal team apparently thinks the diversion agreement should still stand even though it was contingent on Biden pleading guilty to two tax evasion charges, which he reneged on when the plea fell apart.
Biden was indicted Thursday on three felony charges that he illegally purchased a weapon in 2018 when he was using cocaine, and that he lied on federal paperwork in order to do so.
"We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr. Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court," Abbe Lowell told the Washington Examiner.
Biden has not been charged on the tax violations, even though the statute of limitations has not yet run out. Prosecutors indicated when the plea deal fell apart that they may still indict Biden in a different jurisdiction, such as Washington, D.C. or California.
Constitutional attorney Andrew Lieb of Lieb at Law said he would be "shocked" if Weiss did not indict Biden on the tax charges.
If a judge finds the pretrial agreement binding even though the conditions for it have not been met, the charges that Biden lied on federal gun paperwork will be dealt with under that agreement.
The constitutionality of the third charge, a felony for possessing the gun illegally for 11 days between October 12 to 23, 2018, will be challenged by Biden's attorneys, the Examiner reported.
The same charge was found unconstitutional on August 9 by the 5th Circuit Appeals Court, Lowell argued.
"Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 day[s] was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice," Lowell said Thursday.
An arraignment in the case has not been scheduled.
In all reality, the "grave threat to our system of justice" was averted when the plea deal fell apart, since it contained a provision that would have prevented prosecutors from charging Hunter Biden on any of his shady foreign business deals, including allegedly taking a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch at Burisma.
It could have even shut down the investigation into whether President Joe Biden was involved in any of those deals, which is exactly what the DOJ and Biden's lawyers hoped would happen.
It may still go that way, but it'll be harder without the plea deal in place.
Support for both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in their respective primaries has fallen in the most recent polling, but their chances of winning are still pretty good.
Trump's support has dropped from 62% in May to 49% now, according to an Emerson College poll of GOP voters.
Second-place candidate Ron DeSantis also dropped from 20% to 14% in the polling, but the votes that Trump and DeSantis had are being split between four or five other candidates all polling below 10%.
Biden's support in a separate poll shows him at 50%, down from 69% in May. However, no other candidates for the Democrat nomination have seen an increase in votes; instead, the "someone else" category has risen to 34%.
For Biden, it may be a repeat of 2020, when he wasn't able to get enough votes to get the nomination outright. This time, though, there's not even another candidate like Bernie Sanders to dilute his votes--a lot of people just don't want him.
Unfortunately, Trump also has a large number of detractors who will not vote for him no matter what happens with the nomination, so it should be an interesting election if it ends up being these two again.
Biden has been significantly weakened by allegations of corruption and bribes on top of his terrible failed policies in just about every area.
His favorability is down to 39%, and Trump's is in similar territory in spite of a surge in support around the four separate indictments against him.
Several polls also stated that a large majority of voters believe that Biden is too old to run for another term.
One thing that shouldn't factor into the 2024 race is COVID-19, which is no longer considered a great threat. Democrats could try to manufacture another emergency to create similar conditions, however.
But theoretically, no COVID-era voting rules should mean no cheating, right?
Democrats were unable to ram through their "voting rights" act, so red states should be able to run their elections fairly at least. As for purple states (Pennslyvania, Arizona, and Georgia to name a few), it remains to be seen whether loosened rules will ensure that the left takes control (or retains it).
With the two seemingly most unfavorable candidates on the ballot, this should be an election for the ages.
Anything can happen, and might.
In a ruling Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called a "major win against censorship," the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed a lower court ruling Friday that the Biden administration and various federal agencies could not "coerce" social media platforms into removing information they considered problematic.
The case arose following the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw Biden, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI and the surgeon general threatening social media platforms with antitrust lawsuits and changes to liability protections if they didn't remove material the agencies considered false or damaging.
The states of Missouri and Louisiana, a conservative website owner, and four people opposed to the administration’s COVID-19 policy filed the lawsuit.
The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel said the federal government "coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences" and "significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment."
The federal government now has 10 days to decide whether to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Landry celebrated the decision on X, formerly Twitter, saying, "Fifth Circuit just unanimously affirmed Judge Doughty’s injunction against White House, CDC, FBI and others — giving Americans and #FreedomOfSpeech a major win against censorship, totalitarianism, and Biden. #FirstAmendment."
Fifth Circuit just unanimously affirmed Judge Doughty’s injunction against White House, CDC, FBI and others — giving Americans and #FreedomOfSpeech a major win against censorship, totalitarianism, and Biden. #FirstAmendment
— AG Jeff Landry (@AGJeffLandry) September 8, 2023
The court did throw out some language in the injunctions put in place by the lower court, however, saying that the prohibition stopping the administration from even asking social media companies to take down what it thinks is misinformation is "overly broad" and not necessary.
While the ruling is a great step, the Biden administration has shown its willingness to flout laws and court rulings it doesn't agree with.
It's entirely possible that Biden and his accomplices in the deep state will violate the injunction if a similar situation arises, such as damaging information about Biden that could impact the 2024 election.
There's a lot Biden has done that he should not have been able to do, and the courts would be bogged down for years or decades trying to punish him for it all.
It's one thing when a court overturns a law or strikes it down, but these injunctions only mean anything if they are punished when violated--a process that could take many more years to go through.
The only real remedy is to elect a Republican and clean house in federal agencies.
It will be necessary to get rid of all the partisans twisting and breaking laws where they usually don't fall under scrutiny unless whistleblowers come forward, if we are going to break the stranglehold the deep state has on the federal government once and for all.
A lot happened in September during the presidency of George W Bush. Here are some highlights to consider, along with a contrast to the current president's handling of difficult times.
On this month in history, George W. Bush vowed revenge on the 9/11 attackers (2001) and was told by Kanye West that he doesn't care about Black people (2005).
As we get deeper into September, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America nears. Only days after those horrific attacks killed thousands of Americans and set in motion the slow deaths of thousands more, then-President George W. Bush vowed to bring them to justice.
The government would “find them, get them running and hunt them down,” he vowed. It took a little longer than he expected, but Osama bin Laden was finally hunted down by his successor, Barack Obama's administration, and killed.
Mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in 2003 and is still awaiting trial with four other men who were involved.
One of the sticking points is the torture in the form of waterboarding that was inflicted on Mohammed to try to get other intelligence about the attacks.
Their efforts mostly failed, but they set off a controversy about whether the intelligence they did get could be used against the attackers. Now, Mohammed and others sit in Gitmo, 21 years later, still untried for their crimes.
Bush was steadfast about punishing them, and was strong in a time of turmoil for America. Is Biden as strong and capable?
Bush faced another challenge when in September 2005, hip-hop musician Kanye West said that Bush didn't like Black people.
The comment was made during a concert for hurricane relief after Katrina in New Orleans, a city that has a large Black population. Bush faced an unfair backlash at that time for not doing more to help New Orleans, and it turns out his staff didn't keep him properly informed about the extent of the damage and agency failures.
Since then, Biden has presided over several natural disasters, and his handling of them has been even worse than Bush's handling of Katrina.
First, he refused to go to East Palestine, Ohio after a train derailment released toxic chemicals into the air and made the water undrinkable. And then, he callously said "no comment" when asked about the catastrophic wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii a few weeks ago.
He may have finally learned his lesson with a visit to areas damaged by Hurricane Idalia in Florida and Georgia, but it may be too late to win him any goodwill from voters at this point.
A DOJ attempt to block the deposition of former President Donald Trump as part of a lawsuit by two former FBI agents against the bureau has been denied by an appeals court judge, paving the way for it to go forward.
The DOJ had argued that Trump was not directly involved in the firing of agent Peter Strzok in 2017 and the resignation of Lisa Page in 2018 when their text messages disparaging Trump became public along with their affair with each other.
Trump frequently criticized the pair, who were part of the Robert Mueller investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had ruled earlier this year that Trump could be deposed, saying that although he probably wasn't involved in their being taken off their assignments in 2017, he had boasted that he was, and a further look was warranted.
The three-judge panel voted 2-1 not to block the deposition, with both Democrat appointees voting not to block.
Strzok's lawyers didn't comment on the ruling, and Page's legal team said in an email to NBC News that “the order is very clear and speaks for itself.”
Strzok is suing for wrongful termination, while Page is saying her privacy was violated when the text messages were released.
Page has also said that her reputation was damaged, which has impacted her earning power.
It says a lot that they both feel that they were wronged by the government when they were engaging in all kinds of impropriety while collecting a government paycheck.
But what exactly does Trump have to do with it all?
If Trump says he was involved in Strzok's termination and what Page has said is the destruction of her career, it could make their lawsuits against the government more likely to succeed.
His deposition makes at least the sixth legal case he is involved in as he tries to campaign for president in 2024.
There are currently four indictments against him and an ongoing defamation and sexual abuse case by E. Jean Carroll against the former president.
Some Republicans have said that the plethora of indictments amount to election interference, both because they put negative information about Trump before the public and because they are bound to take up a lot of his time and prevent him from effectively campaigning for president.
A new report from Fox News said that Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two with his father to at least 13 foreign countries, though host Jesse Watters said it was at least 15 and that Hunter often took the back steps on and off Air Force Two to avoid being seen.
FOX: Records show Hunter Biden "tagged along to at least 13 different countries" with then-VP Joe Biden, even "proposing setting up business calls or meetings while he was on those trips." pic.twitter.com/7PU1WaCVXp
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 24, 2023
Secret Service records show that Hunter Biden requested protection for himself in Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya on the same dates his father traveled there in 2010.
He was seen in 2013 riding in a Japanese limousine with his parents and then in their limousine in Germany as well.
The report said that Hunter suggested business proposals on some of these trips, which if true, makes President Joe Biden a liar for saying he was never involved in or never talked to Hunter about his overseas business dealings.
Biden's current contention is that he was never "in business" with Hunter, as per press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who insists that his "story has not changed" even though it has changed radically.
Never talking to Hunter or being involved in his business dealings is a far cry from not being "in business" with him.
The House Oversight Committee could probably argue with even Jean-Pierre's latest statement, since the Biden family apparently owns over 20 shell companies that get foreign payouts even though they offer no goods or services (at least not publicly).
It would be a huge coincidence that Hunter Biden set up business deals with foreign companies while flying on his dad's official airplane without his dad knowing anything about them, particularly given Hunter's lack of expertise in any of the areas the business dealt with.
It's not like Hunter was 22 when all of these trips took place--he was in his 40s and 50s. Not exactly of an age to be flying around the world with Dad just for the fun of it.
Of course, wrongdoing has to be proven, but it's not difficult to see what was going on by looking at reports like these.
Watters was convinced--he declared while talking about the report that "Joe Biden can no longer claim he wasn't in business with his son."
🚨BOMBSHELL: Leaked secret emails reveal Hunter Biden traveled with VP Joe Biden to 15 COUNTRIES on Air Force 2, Jessie Watters files FOIA request for Biden flight manifests pic.twitter.com/hspwu2pezU
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 25, 2023
Wonder how Biden will spin the story next, and when the media will stop believing anything he or the White House says?
According to a Politico story reported on the X platform, Hunter Biden spent a whole day in 2019 meeting with impeachment lawyers during the first impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
The meeting became known during the investigation into Hunter Biden's tax situation and overseas business dealings because Biden told tax investigators that he couldn't meet with them on January 27, 2020 because he would be meeting with impeachment lawyers "for the day."
Miranda Devine brought this fact to light in a tweet on X (why do we still call them tweets?).
And this curious fact: Hunter was involved in the Trump impeachment over Ukraine. In the summer of 2019, he tells an adviser he has an all-day meeting “with impeachment lawyers”. After 5 years, he still has not been interviewed by Weiss’ team or testified before the grand jury. pic.twitter.com/yVK7Az8DsQ
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) August 20, 2023
No other information about the meeting was given, so we don't know why Biden was meeting with lawyers trying to impeach Trump, what they wanted to know, or whether the meeting ultimately helped or hurt Trump.
Based on the phone call over which Trump was impeached, it's possible that the lawyers wanted answers about why Trump would think there was corruption going on that involved Hunter Biden and his father, who was then running to be the Democrat nominee for president.
It would make sense that some in the Senate would want to know exactly what happened with the firing of Viktor Shokin and whether it had anything to do with Hunter Biden's Burisma involvement.
It would also make sense that they would want to know whether Trump's corruption allegations had any merit, although we now know a lot more than we used to about Biden family corruption.
While it is big news that Hunter Biden was involved in Trump's first impeachment, it's really not all that surprising given the contents of the phone call Trump made.
The evidence that has come out about Biden family members getting payouts from foreign operatives, including bank records and shell companies, far surpasses what Democrats tried to accuse Trump of, but Republicans are not yet ready to back impeachment for Biden.
Even if they have him dead to rights, Democrats won't vote to impeach him, so it would be a purely symbolic exercise.
If the bribery accused by whistleblowers is true, however, they can hardly just let it go.
Meanwhile, the investigation continues to discover more proof that the Bidens took millions for possible political favors.
There's nothing fair about the situation, and many Republicans are getting increasingly angry about it.
Several former President Donald Trump surrogates who planned in coordination with the RNC to be in Wednesday's post-debate spin room have been barred by Fox News because of Trump's decision to skip the debate.
Trump said last week that he will do an interview on X, formerly Twitter, with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that will air at the same time as the Fox News debate, which apparently sparked some anger at the network.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Byron Donalds (R-FL), former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Donald Trump Jr., and Kimberly Guilfoyle had all planned to be in the spin room after the debate representing Trump's viewpoints.
A memo obtained by Axios said that only "participating candidates/campaigns" would get press credentials to be in the spin room, shutting them out.
The surrogates said they still plan to travel to Milwaukee where the debate will be held and think they can get new credentials from the RNC to be in the spin room post-debate.
RNC chair Ronna McDaniel had arranged for some of them to be at the debate when Trump said he would skip it, which triggered a backlash from the candidates that would be there and their supporters.
Debate participants will include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
The eight candidates met RNC requirements to poll at least at 1%, get 200 or more unique donors in at least 20 states, and sign the RNC's loyalty pledge to support the eventual GOP nominee.
Trump met the requirements but would not sign the pledge, which is likely why he removed himself from the group.
There's a chance that Trump will skip all of the primary debates because he doesn't want to sign the pledge.
Tens of millions may be watching the debate to learn more about candidates and their positions, and the debate should be more drama-free without Trump there.
Trump currently holds a huge polling lead of 38 points over the nearest competitor, which is DeSantis, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Trump has 52% to DeSantis's 14%, with Ramaswamy at 9% and all other candidates under 5%.
Whether any of the candidates on stage will be able to make a dent in Trump's lead remains to be seen.