The debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris kept fact-checkers busy for days, as multiple bombshell claims were made on both sides of the debate stage.
Perhaps one of the biggest claims was one Trump made against Harris, in which he accused her of supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants currently being held in custody.
Not surprisingly, fact-checkers jumped on the claim and were presumably ready to shoot it down.
However, according to Fox News, the New York Times was forced to admit that Trump's claim was "basically true."
Trump sent fact-checkers into a near seizure-like state after making the claim against Harris.
"Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison," Trump said during the debate as he knocked Harris on several policy issues.
Fox News noted:
Except the context her fact-check provided just further confirmed Trump's claim. In addition to quoting the ACLU questionnaire and Harris' response, Stolberg wrote, "she said she supported using taxpayer funds to give access to gender-affirming care to transgender and nonbinary people, including those in immigration detention and prison."
Harris had originally shown her support for such procedures in her response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire she filled out as a presidential candidate.
Not surprisingly, the Harris campaign immediately jumped into damage control mode, scrambling to distance their candidate from such a radically progressive stance on the issue.
"That questionnaire is not what she is proposing or running on," a Harris campaign spokesperson said.
NYT admits Harris supports funding migrant sex changes in fact-check ruling Trump's claim 'needs context' | Fox News
The paper acknowledged the 'wildest sounding attack line' from Tuesday's debate was 'basically true'
The New York Times admitted an explosive attack against Vice… pic.twitter.com/DfHGbJ3xDC
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) September 14, 2024
Many pundits on both sides of the political aisle believe that neither Harris or Trump moved the needle significantly in any one direction, though most of the Democrat-friendly mainstream media announced Harris as the "winner" of the debate.
Polls after the debate showed Trump gaining ground in some battleground states, while other polls showed Harris staying even with the former president.
In the wake of their first debate, Trump and his campaign have declined to do any future debates before the election.
Republicans are moving forward with contempt charges against Secretary of State Antony Blinken for ignoring a subpoena about the Afghanistan withdrawal.
This August marked three years since the botched and bloody evacuation, which led to the deaths of 13 American troops in a terror bombing and billions of dollars in equipment abandoned to the Taliban.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, set a September 19 date to mark up the contempt resolution, the Washington Examiner reported.
"This was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions,” McCaul told reporters on Monday. “This is a disgrace. I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people.”
The White House dismissed McCaul's contempt threat as partisan bluster, noting Blinken has testified to Congress numerous times.
“The Secretary has testified before the Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times — more than any other Cabinet-level official,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, the Washington Examiner reported. “It is disappointing that instead of continuing to engage with the Department in good faith, the Committee instead has issued yet another unnecessary subpoena.”
McCaul released a lengthy report this week blaming the Biden-Harris administration for the chaotic evacuation, which has continued to haunt the White House ahead of the fall elections.
Democrats have pointed the finger at President Trump, who negotiated a deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan. McCaul's report says the Taliban had violated the terms of the Doha Agreement, but the Biden administration pushed ahead regardless with a dangerous and ill-conceived evacuation that prioritized "optics" over safety.
The report echoes criticism from top generals like Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie, who blame the State Department for failing to order a timely evacuation.
McCaul, a foreign policy hawk, said the withdrawal has damaged America's global security interests.
"We cannot see now into Afghanistan except through over the horizon, which doesn't work. We can't see Russia, China and Iran, either, because of this tragic failure of foreign policy," he told reporters.
The Biden administration has stood by its decision to withdraw, saying it was time to end America's longest war.
The Justice Department, which is currently run by Democratic partisan Merrick Garland, would need to act on any contempt charges approved by the House.
The DOJ earlier this year declined to prosecute Garland after Republicans voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to provide an audio recording of Joe Biden.
The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the two-year suspension of a prosecutor who was fired for her controversial prosecution of Black Lives Matter rioters in the fall of 2020.
Former Maricopa County prosecutor April Sponsel lost her law license after she pursued "criminal gang" charges against leftists who illegally blocked a roadway in Phoenix.
The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the suspension Tuesday, meaning she will lose her license for two years. The court did not share a written opinion.
The rioters threw smoke bombs, shined lights in officers' faces and used umbrellas to hide their identities. When told to disperse, they ignored officers' commands.
Authorities argued the rioters - who chanted "ACAB," short for "all cops are bastards" - colluded like a gang to avoid arrest and attack cops. Like gangs typically do, they wore the same color - black.
"These particular groups they try to make it as difficult as possible for us to arrest them," Phoenix police Sgt. Douglas McBride told an evidentiary hearing. "They try every tactic they can to protect each other from the police and inflict as much pain as they can on us while we're trying to effect an arrest."
The rioters were charged with assisting a gang, rioting, obstructing a thoroughfare, unlawful assembly, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest.
All of the charges were eventually dropped after Sponsel's case fell under scrutiny from ABC15, a local left-leaning news station sympathetic to the rioters.
In 2022, Sponsel was fired by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for a "disturbing pattern of excessive charging." Sponsel then lost her law license in December 2023 after a lengthy trial, where some of the defendants testified as witnesses.
One of the people charged as a gang member was a photographer who took pictures of the riot. The man, Ryder Collins, said he stumbled on the riot by coincidence after taking pictures of the sunset in downtown Phoenix.
Another rioter referred to Collins by his first name, which made Sponsel suspicious, the Tennessee Star noted.
Sponsel maintained her innocence throughout the saga, testifying that she was correct to treat the group as a gang. She said there was reason to believe Collins was a "legal observer" who was documenting the riot on behalf of the group.
"If you take that away, they're still a gang based on all of the other things were looking at and we knew,” she said.
A 35-year-old TikTok creator collapsed and died while running a marathon in Southern California's extreme heat this week.
Bobby Graves, an experienced marathon runner, "clutched his chest" while crossing the finish line, KTLA reported. The runner had no known health issues.
The tragedy unfolded after 7 a.m. at Disneyland in Anaheim, where Graves was running the Halloween Half Marathon. The coroner is investigating the cause of his sudden cardiac arrest.
Just a day before the tragedy, Graves shared an eerie message with his TikTok following: "I really hope I get through the race tomorrow morning," he told his 18,000 fans.
Graves had experienced heat exhaustion, telling his followers, “I was outside for like 20 minutes walking my dog...Ten minutes later after I came back in, I just passed out.”
The Texas native said he was not used to the UV conditions in Southern California, which experienced temperatures in the triple digits this week.
"The UV exposure with the heat in Southern California is its own kind of beast," he said.
Graves ran Disney World's full marathon and half-marathon in 2024 and 2023, KTLA reported. He was not known to have any health conditions, Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said.
“Anaheim fire and rescue personnel were on scene immediately and started giving lifesaving measures and transported them to the hospital,” Sutter said. “Unfortunately, they worked on him for about an hour, and he was pronounced deceased at the hospital.”
Graves, who went by his middle name Caleb, was a Los Angeles lawyer specializing in copyright, entertainment and intellectual property.
On TikTok, Graves was known as an experienced runner and Disney fan who participated in marathons at the company's theme parks.
“We were informed earlier today that Caleb Graves passed away. His many friends and colleagues at the firm are grieving the loss of a stellar person and lawyer,” his employer, law firm Wilson Sonsini, said by email. “Out of respect for his family’s privacy, we have no further comment at this time.”
“We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss and our hearts are with Caleb’s family and loved ones during this difficult time,” Disneyland Resort spokesperson Jessica Good said in an email.
This is not the first time a runner has died in a Disney marathon. In 2019, a runner died during the Walt Disney World Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend 5K.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan criticized the court's growing "shadow docket" of often controversial case that the court takes up on an emergency basis.
The emergency docket has expanded in recent years, a trend that Kagan lamented in an interview about the court's work Monday.
According to Kagan, the trend started during the Trump administration and has only continued under Biden.
"It's a symmetric problem: it doesn't really matter who's president," Kagan told a professor at New York University's law school. "Government and non-government parties started coming to the court in ever-increasing numbers."
The growth of the emergency docket has impacted the court's summer recess, which is becoming busier than ever.
Since its term ended in July, the court has continued to rule on controversial matters like Biden's student loan plan and his expansion of Title IX guidelines to protect transgender students.
Cases on the emergency docket typically do not include complete written opinions from the justices, who now issue about 60 full opinions per year. Kagan regretted that the court is spending a "ton more time" on the emergency docket these days.
"It's a very hard problem," Kagan said. "I don't think we do our best work in this way."
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that it was mistaken to accept an Idaho abortion case. Kagan cited the reversal as an example of "the things that can go wrong" when the court takes cases "without a good understanding of what a case is about."
"I thought it was a mistake from the get-go," she said.
Kagan also addressed the mounting calls from Democrat for Supreme Court reform, including an enforceable ethics code.
“It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that we comply with our own code of conduct going forward in the future,” Kagan said. “It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that people have confidence that we’re doing exactly that. So it seems like a salutary thing for the court."
Kagan, who usually votes with the liberal wing, also discussed the importance of cultivating relationships with her colleagues across the aisle.
She discussed her new interest in golf, something she shares with Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts.
“Why should you care?" Kagan said. "If it leads to better decision making, if it leads to better conversations ... about the court's business, then it's a fantastic thing," she said.
Still, Kagan acknowledged many Americans are looking for more substantive reform: "But the proof is in the pudding ... It should not be sufficient for us to say, 'we go to the opera together.'"
Democrats have spent weeks bragging about Kamala Harris' momentum, but Donald Trump is getting the last laugh as he finally pulls ahead just before their high-stakes debate.
A bombshell New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday has Trump leading Harris 48% to 47% with likely voters. The data, coming from a highly rated pollster, suggests that Harris' media-driven "honeymoon" is finally over.
The survey was taken from 1,695 registered voters across the country from Sept. 3 to 6, 2024. Trump's lead is within the margin of error of 2.8 points.
The new numbers are a reversion to where things stood just after Joe Biden ended his re-election bid in July.
Trump leads on the most important issue, the economy. 55% of voters trust Trump more on the economy compared to Harris, and 53% trust Trump more on immigration. Harris wins on abortion, with 54% trusting her more.
21% rated the economy as the top issue, followed by 14% saying abortion, 12% saying immigration, and 7% saying inflation and cost of living.
Likely voters also see Trump as the more moderate candidate - another red flag for Harris. While 47% of voters say Harris is too liberal, just 32% said Trump is too conservative.
The sobering polls raises the stakes of Tuesday night's debate, where Harris and Trump will face off for the first - and maybe the last - time.
Voters know less about Harris then they do about Trump, the poll found. Until now, Harris has dodged tough questioning from the press.
In another good sign for Trump, 53% of voters believe Trump will bring major changes to the country, but only 25% said the same for Harris. 60% of likely voters want change.
The large gap shows that Harris' attempts to paint herself as a fresh face are falling flat. Harris has sought to distance herself from the Biden administration, in which she has served as vice president, while her campaign retracts many of her formerly leftist positions without any clear explanation.
About half of voters say Harris shares some blame for high prices and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Two-thirds say she has some blame for the crisis at the southern border.
"She’s right to call herself an underdog,” said Anthony Coley, a Democratic strategist who served in the Biden administration, told The Hill. "I’m glad this poll came out. It’s a gift to Democrats …and it’s a wake-up call in many ways.”
Throughout the entirety of the multiple prosecutors going after former President Donald Trump, many, including the former president, were sure that the justice system was being abused to target him because of his politics.
While that's routinely written off as conspiracy theory, according to Breitbart, a top Justice Department spokesperson was reportedly caught on camera admitting as such.
The DOJ spokesperson, on hidden video, slammed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for carrying out a "perversion of justice" against Trump in the lead-up to the November election.
The bombshell admission was caught by "an unidentified operative with podcaster Steven Crowder’s 'Mug Club' on multiple occasions."
Nicholas Biase, the public affairs director for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) was caught on camera admitting what many already knew.
One particular clip was especially damning. Biase said "To be honest with you, I think the case is nonsense," in the wake of Trump being convicted by DA Bragg in the New York "hush money" case.
Breitbart noted:
Telling the undercover woman he had known Bragg for 15 years as they used to work together in the SDNY office, Biase accused the DA of “stacking charges [against Trump] and, like, rearranging things just to make it fit a case.”
Biase seemed to confirm that Bragg's motivation for going after Trump was purely for career-building efforts, suggesting that he might be seeking a mayoral position down the road.
Your colleague of 10+ years said your case against @realDonaldTrump is "nonsense" and a "perversion of justice."
He claims you "stacked" charges to fit a case because of your future political aspirations.
What do you have to say? Don't be quiet now. @ManhattanDA https://t.co/gTTc38dOgQ pic.twitter.com/kIssUAYmJZ
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) September 5, 2024
"He wants to be something … a mayor? I’m not sure what he wants to be, but I know he’s not happy just being the DA of New York County. Before he decided to prosecute Trump, did you know who he was? You do now," Biase reportedly told the undercover journalist.
Users across social media were quick to offer their opinions on the matter.
"The Marxist trash like @ManhattanDA doesn't care about honesty, integrity or the rule of law. All he cares about is rigging the system to persecute political opponents. The Stasi would be so proud of the Democrat party," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "Democrats are dirty and will do anything they can to smear trump and try to sway public opinion."
It'll be interesting to see what happens as a result of the admission.
Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is still taking the brunt of the protest annoyances from the pro-Palestinian left.
According to The Blaze, pro-Hamas and anti-Israel groups staged a protest in the form of a sit-in protest "outside of former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's Columbia University course on Wednesday."
At the university's Institute of Global Politics in the School of International and Public Affairs, the former secretary of state teaches a class called "Inside the Situation Room."
Pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protesters continue to voice their opposition to President Joe Biden's approach to the situation in Israel.
The sit-in demonstration at Clinton's school was organized by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs Palestine Working Group.
"From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever," shouted some of the dozens of protesters who showed up.
Others held up signs that read, "Resist until victory," "Resistance is justified when people are occupied," "The Palestinian resistance is alive, not dead," and "Fa[s]cist bootlicker we know [yo]u," according to a report by The Washington Free Beacon.
Columbia students protest, Hillary Clinton pic.twitter.com/xfdqpPng5M
— TruthGateOfficial (@TruthGateOff) September 5, 2024
The Blaze noted:
The sit-in was organized by the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs Palestine Working Group, which posted a notice about the scheduled protest on social media. The post featured an image of Clinton with crossed-out eyes and covered in red, blood-like splatters.
The students involved were directly protesting Clinton for not doing more to end what they call a "genocide" of the Palestinian people.
On one of the announcements, the organizers wrote, "We will not stand for genocide propaganda and the militarization of our campus. We call on all students to walk out of Hillary's sham class!"
Two additional groups, including Columbia University Apartheid Divest and the school's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, also supported the protest, and were caught earlier in the week preventing students from attending class.
Officials said the groups were also responsible for some vandalism on campus, and the groups called the protests this week "just the beginning."
Only time will tell if the protests ever die down.
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to felony tax crimes Thursday, exposing himself to jail time while avoiding a criminal trial that could have unveiled incriminating evidence of his family's overseas business deals.
He entered the plea as jury selection began in what would have been a weeks-long trial for tax evasion on $1.4 million in foreign income. The scandal-plagued son of President Joe Biden framed his decision as an act of love to spare his family public embarrassment.
“I will not subject my family to more pain, more invasions of privacy and needless embarrassment,” Hunter Biden said in an emailed statement. “For all I have put them through over the years, I can spare them this, and so I have decided to plead guilty.”
Biden was convicted in a separate gun trial in June that delved into his drug addiction and sexual exploits. His surprise plea Thursday spares his family from public scrutiny over his shadowy international business deals in countries like China and Ukraine.
"Hunter put his family first today, and it was a grave and loving thing for him to do," Hunter's attorney Abbe Lowell said.
Biden was accused of evading taxes on foreign income from 2016 to 2019, a time when he was earning millions from overseas deals involving virtually no work.
Prosecutors planned to introduce evidence that Hunter was a foreign lobbyist for Romania during his father's vice presidency. Hunter Biden was not charged under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which led critics to say he was getting a slap on the wrist.
After his plea, Biden is facing up to 17 years in prison and fines of $1.35 million.
The Justice Department had spent years slow walking an investigation of Biden's taxes before a thicket of legal troubles began to crowd around him last year. A notorious "sweetheart" plea deal blew up in court, leading Special Counsel David Weiss to file felony tax and gun charges.
Biden will be sentenced on December 16 for tax evasion, weeks after his sentencing in the gun case on November 13.
The guilty plea is likely to fuel speculation about a possible pardon from Joe Biden, who previously pledged to not pardon his son. That was before Biden ended his re-election bid in a shocking reversal.
Before entering his plea, Hunter had attempted to negotiate an "Alford" plea, which would have allowed him to plead guilty without acknowledging wrongdoing. It didn't fly with prosecutors, who said he is not entitled to "special" treatment, and his lawyers backed down.
A former Virginia cop and war veteran who was convicted over January 6th had his sentence reduced by more than a year.
Ex-Rocky Mount Police Sgt. Thomas Robertson had his original sentence of seven years and three months reduced to six years after the Supreme Court rebuked the Justice Department for stretching the law on "obstruction of an official proceeding."
This is the first example of a sentence being reduced because of the court's June ruling in Fischer v. United States.
The Supreme Court clarified that the obstruction statute, which became law after the Enron scandal, only applies to those who destroy physical evidence.
The DOJ has charged hundreds with obstruction of an official proceeding for interrupting the certification of the 2020 election. In some cases, it is the only felony filed against a January 6th participant.
Robertson was convicted of multiple felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and entering a restricted area with a dangerous weapon, a large wooden stick.
The former cop, who was off-duty at the time, entered the Capitol with another off-duty Rocky Mount police officer, Jacob Fracker, and a third unidentified man. Once inside, Robertson and Fracker photographed themselves giving the middle finger in front of a statue of John Stark, an American Revolutionary War general.
Robertson, a veteran who was injured in Afghanistan, shared social media posts indicating he was prepared to fight in a "counter insurgency."
“I’ve spent most of my adult life fighting a counter insurgency. (I’m) about to become part of one, and a very effective one,” he wrote.
Prosecutors officially moved to drop Robertson's obstruction conviction Wednesday but insisted that the judge keep his 87-month sentence, arguing he came prepared to start an "armed rebellion."
Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, balked at the request and lowered the sentence to six years. The judge said he doubted Robertson's original sentence would have been more than seven years if not for the obstruction charge.
Robertson expressed remorse to the court as his defense lawyer, Mark Rollins, insisted he had no intent to "overthrow democracy."
"Everything that could be taken from this man has been taken," Rollins said. "What you find now is a broken man."
Robertson served in the Iraq War and was wounded by gunshot and mortar shrapnel in the Afghanistan War, undergoing 10 surgeries to recover.
He became a sergeant with the Rocky Mount Police Department, but he was fired, along with Fracker, after their involvement in January 6th came to light.