A new name has been added to the list of potential vice presidential candidates that former President Donald Trump may be considering to be his running mate in November's election.
According to longtime Trump ally Roger Stone, that new addition to Trump's VP shortlist would be former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who is currently the CEO of Trump Media, the Washington Examiner reported.
During his time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes played an integral role in helping to begin exposing and unraveling the "Russiagate" hoax and proved himself to be a top ally of the former president in Congress.
Stone, during an interview this week with Newsmax host Eric Bolling, raised former Rep. Nunes as a possible VP pick for former President Trump and provided several compelling reasons for that choice after first laying out what he believed should be the top criteria for Trump to consider in a prospective running mate.
Of Trump, Stone said, "I do think he's got a lot of good candidates. He hasn't confided in me, to be very clear, and I don't speak for him in any way. I think his list is getting larger rather than smaller."
"But I think he needs somebody who, first and foremost, has the judgment and experience and the capacity to be president if, God forbid, something should happen to Trump," he continued. "Then secondarily I think he needs someone who will carry the America First revolution forward, should they succeed him, and then thirdly, you want somebody who is surefooted, someone who is experienced, somebody who will not get tripped up in the first week."
Pressed by Bolling to provide a name, Stone replied, "You know who I'd like? I just thought of this last night -- Devin Nunes."
"Twenty-year member of Congress, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, someone Donald Trump is very close to and trusts entirely," he added. "He’s Hispanic, a former farmer from before he went to Congress. I think he would be an excellent choice."
There has been widespread speculation for months among the media about who former President Trump is considering to be his running mate, but this appears to be the first time that former Rep. Nunes' name has been floated as a possible contender for that position.
CNN reported last week that, according to multiple unnamed sources who've "been briefed" or spoken directly to Trump about the matter, the VP "shortlist" is actually "very long" and constantly "in flux" as Trump floats various names to allies, donors, Mar-a-Lago members, and his supporters to gauge their reactions.
Currently near the top of that ever-changing list, in no particular order, are prospective candidates like Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Tim Scott (R-SC), and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, along with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Housing Sec. Ben Carson, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY).
According to Axios, other potential picks include business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and perhaps even former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. Other possibilities, albeit seemingly less likely, include Rep. Marjorie Green Taylor (R-GA), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).
In his Newsmax interview, Stone also noted that former President Trump continues to lead in the polls despite the mounting legal issues he faces, and said, "Everything we're seeing is counterintuitive. But that's because -- let's face it -- Donald Trump broke the mold, and all the conventional wisdom about politics really went out the window in 2016 when he was first elected."
"Normally, when a candidate for public office is charged with multiple crimes, fundraising dries up, their voter support drops," he added. "But in this case, Donald Trump's campaign continues to be turbocharged by this tsunami of lawfare against him, because, frankly, I think the American people are fair-minded, and they can see through every bit of it
In 2021, the Republican-led Montana Legislature passed several election law reform bills that were subsequently challenged by lawsuits from Democrats and Native American groups, with four of those new reform laws being ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge in 2022.
Montana's Republican Secretary of State appealed the lower court's ruling, but the Montana Supreme Court just affirmed that the district court was correct in declaring the challenged election reform laws as unconstitutional, The Hill reported.
Of the four challenged election reform laws, according to the Montana Supreme Court's 125-page ruling on Wednesday, one in particular was swiftly dispensed as unconstitutional via a summary judgment from the district court judge before the trial even began.
HB 506 changed existing law to now prohibit the provision of an absentee ballot to a minor who would turn 18 and become eligible to vote before an election day, an alteration that the high court agreed "interfered with the fundamental right to vote" of otherwise eligible voters.
Also challenged was HB 176, which eliminated same-day voter registration and moved the registration deadline up to noon of the day before an election day, which the courts determined violated the right to vote and equal protection under the U.S. and state constitutions.
The Supreme Court further noted that "Election day registration has become wildly popular, with over 70,000 Montanans utilizing it since 2006," as well as that "In a 2014 referendum, Montana voters rejected eliminating election day registration by a 14-point margin."
The Hill reported that the Democratic and Native American plaintiff groups also challenged as unconstitutional a section of HB 530 that outlawed the paid collection and submission of ballots by a third-party individual or group, also known as ballot harvesting.
However, the courts found that the provision violated "the right to vote, equal protection, freedom of speech, due process," and was "an improper delegation of legislative power." The courts further observed the existence of "evidence that many groups, including Native Americans, people with disabilities, and other voters, rely on organized groups to help them deliver their voted ballots to election officials."
Finally, there was SB 169, which made changes to Montana's voter ID law and demoted student IDs from a "primary" to a "secondary" form of identification, meaning some additional proof that voters "are who they say they are" would still be required before casting a ballot -- a change that was deemed an unconstitutional violation of equal protection rights.
According to The Hill, Montana's Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, who was the sole defendant in the consolidated lawsuits brought by Democratic and Native American groups, asserted in a statement that "Well-funded groups deceived the court and the media in a sad way."
Through a spokesperson, Jacobsen's office told the Montana Free Press in a statement, "The secretary is devastated by this decision but assures Montanans that her commitment to election integrity will not waver by this narrow adoption of judicial activism that is certain to fall on the wrong side of history."
"State and county election officials have been punched in the gut," the spokesperson added on the secretary's behalf.
The Free Press reported that while all of the Montana Supreme Court justices concurred on the unconstitutionality of the law that disallowed absentee ballots for minors who would turn 18 before election day, there were some dissents from the majority's judgment on the unconstitutionality of the other three laws, especially from Justice Dirk Sandefur.
At one point in his lengthy dissent, Sandefur wrote, "In an unprecedented exercise of unrestrained judicial power overriding public policy determinations made by the Legislature in the exercise of its constitutional discretion, however ill-advised to some, the majority today strikes down three distinct legislative enactments on the most dubiously transparent of constitutional grounds."
Amid all of the speculative focus on who former President Donald Trump might eventually pick as his running mate, the media largely ignored the more pressing quest of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a vice presidential candidate of his own.
That search ended on Tuesday when Kennedy announced that he had selected tech attorney, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan to be his running mate in November's election, Fox News reported.
Shanahan, 38, a lifelong Democrat who supports numerous leftist causes, has been a big financial backer of Kennedy's independent run for the presidency, including a $4 million donation to the Kennedy-aligned super PAC that aired a 1960s-style JFK-themed ad for Kennedy's candidacy that aired during the Super Bowl in February.
Fox News reported that Kennedy announced his choice of Shanahan as his running mate during an event in her hometown of Oakland, California, and praised her as "a partner with strong ideas of how to reverse those dire threats to democracy and to our freedoms. I managed to find a technologist at the forefront of AI. She has spent the last decade relying on neural networks, artificial intelligence, and cutting-edge science, to identify abuses in our government."
He further heralded his new sidekick as "a woman who grew up right here in Oakland. The daughter of migrants who overcame every daunting obstacle and went on to achieve the highest levels of the American dream" as well as "a fellow lawyer, a brilliant scientist, technologist, a fierce warrior mom."
For her part, Shanahan, like Kennedy, denounced the Democratic Party and explained to the crowd why she had decided to leave it and declare her political independence. She said, "The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of compassion. It is supposed to be the party of free speech, and most importantly, the party of the middle class and the American dream."
"While I know many Democrats still abide by those values … I do believe they've lost their way in their leadership," she added as she also urged other "disillusioned" voters, Democrats and Republicans alike, to similarly ditch their respective parties and throw their support behind Kennedy's independent bid for the presidency.
According to Politico, Shanahan is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant mother and a white American father who was born and raised in Oakland and was previously married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, with whom she has an autistic daughter, before they were divorced.
She currently manages a non-profit organization known as Bia-Echo that focuses on women's reproductive rights, criminal justice reform, and environmentalism, and separately focuses much of her attention on searching for a cure or treatments for autism.
Politically, Shanahan has long been a financial backer of prominent Democratic candidates, including the past several presidential nominees and some of their primary competitors, along with the Democratic National Committee, though she quickly shifted her support to Kennedy once he entered the race with a maximum donation to his campaign and substantial contributions to multiple Kennedy-affiliated PACs.
The reason for Kennedy picking Shanahan as his running mate at such a seemingly early stage in the election year, according to the Associated Press, is because Kennedy, as an independent candidate without the backing of a major party, must have a vice presidential candidate by his side to qualify to appear on the ballot in nearly half of the states.
Politico reported that Democrats wasted little time in attacking Kennedy and Shanahan over their purported anti-vaccine views and the "danger" they posed in siphoning votes away from President Joe Biden in sufficient numbers to help former President Trump win the election.
Per the AP, a spokesman for a Trump-aligned super PAC said in a statement, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking," and added of Shanahan, "It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate."
As for Trump himself, he wrote in a Truth Social post, "RFK Jr. is the most Radical Left Candidate in the race, by far. He’s a big fan of the Green New Scam, and other economy killing disasters. I guess this would mean he is going to be taking votes from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great service to America."
"His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, is even more 'Liberal' than him, if that’s possible. Kennedy is a Radical Left Democrat, and always will be!!!" he added. "It’s great for MAGA, but the Communists will make it very hard for him to get on the Ballot. Expect him, and her, to be indicted any day now, probably for Environmental Fraud! He is Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, not mine. I love that he is running!"
There has been rampant media speculation for months about who former President Donald Trump is considering to be his 2024 running mate, and while he has occasionally dropped a few hints about particular attributes he is looking for, those clues have not been sufficient to reveal who his final choice may be.
That might be because, according to multiple unnamed sources, Trump's vice presidential shortlist is "very long" and constantly "in flux" as various candidates rise and fall in the rankings on any given day, CNN reported.
The unconfirmed report was based on conversations with "multiple" anonymous sources who've purportedly "been briefed on the matter or have spoken to the former president about it."
According to CNN's report last week, the names currently near the top of former President Trump's ever-changing VP shortlist include Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) along with Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, former Housing Sec. Ben Carson, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), with Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem also earning serious consideration.
Trump is reportedly considering about a dozen potential candidates for the VP position and frequently floats different names in conversations with advisers, donors, members of his Mar-a-Lago club, and supporters at his campaign events, typically as a way to gauge people's reactions.
One unnamed adviser told the outlet of Trump, "One day he is trashing someone, and the next day he is asking allies about that person as vice president. Sometimes he’s just curious what people think of them."
CNN noted that its sources said Trump has not yet made a final decision on who his VP pick will be and also revealed an ongoing debate within the campaign about when Trump's choice should be revealed, with some arguing he should announce early to boost his fundraising efforts while others argue he should wait, perhaps even until the GOP convention, so that he can build more suspense and draw more attention to the formal nominating event.
Except for the recent addition of Sen. Rubio to the Trump VP discussion, most of the names mentioned in the CNN report have been included in the potential running mate conversation for months, though those individuals certainly aren't the only ones under consideration by the former president.
Just one day before that report, CBS News published its own list of likely candidates based on anonymous sources that, aside from some of those mentioned by CNN, also included names like North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who didn't criticize Trump during his own failed campaign and immediately endorsed the former president after he dropped out, and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served loyally as Trump's White House press secretary for several years.
Still others thought to be in the running, according to an Axios report earlier in March, include business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL).
One more possibility, per NBC News, is former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who previously denounced the Democratic Party, declared herself politically independent, and has been increasingly espousing conservative-leaning views over the past year or two.
It has been said that, far more so than media pundits and even pollsters, bettors who wager their own money in the various betting markets have a keener sense of who will win different political competitions, which led to a recent update from Newsweek about who was viewed by bettors as bookies as having the most favorable odds to be former President Trump's VP pick.
Topping that list as of last week was Sen. Scott, followed by Gov. Noem, with former Rep. Gabbard, incumbent Rep. Stefanik, and former Sec. Carson rounding out the most likely top five to be Trump's running mate.
To be sure, there are a few other prominent Republicans who've occasionally garnered mention in the Trump VP race, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, but it seems safe to presume that those two former 2024 competitors are among those that Trump has "ruled out" of consideration, per a recent Trump interview with Newsmax host Greg Kelly, due to them having not "behaved properly" toward him during their respective campaigns.
President Joe Biden has just been accused of stealing money from school children in Texas.
The accusation comes from Dawn Buckingham, Texas' land commissioner.
She detailed her accusation in a message that she posted to her X account last week.
Today, I filed a lawsuit against @JoeBiden over his recent reckless decision to freeze new natural gas exports. Biden’s move to halt these exports will steal money from #Texas schoolchildren and lead us further away from true energy independence. I will not allow that to happen… pic.twitter.com/Shcj4kl1RJ
— Dawn Buckingham (@DrBuckinghamTX) March 21, 2024
What Buckingham is taking issue with, here, according to Breitbart News, is the Biden administration's decision to block new exports of liquid natural gas.
Accordingly, Buckingham has filed a lawsuit to put an end to this policy.
Breitbart reports, "The lawsuit states this will increase methane emissions and reduce or eliminate critical economic benefits, including jobs, infrastructure updates, and long-term development."
In the lawsuit, each point is taken in turn. For example, it states that "the oil and gas industry supports more than 2.5 million jobs statewide, many of which are high-paying and bolster the economy in rural areas of Texas."
Buckingham, in the lawsuit, concludes, "In light of these facts, it’s unconscionable that our own federal government would take such drastic steps with the goal of shutting down this thriving industry."
Buckingham, also, specifically accuses Biden of stealing from school children.
"Biden’s move to halt these exports will steal money from Texas schoolchildren," she wrote.
Breitbart News explains the accusation, reporting:
The Texas General Land Office deposited more than $30 billion into the state’s Permanent School Fund since its inception, the commissioner stated in the lawsuit. During the last fiscal year (September 1, 2022, to August 31, 2023) energy production in Texas resulted in $339 million in natural gas revenues for the fund.
According to Buckingham, the Biden administration's decision to stop liquid natural gas exports will take this money away from the Permanent School Fund and, thus, away from the children who benefit from the fund. Buckingham, in her own words, says that the export ban will "hamstring Texas’s ability to maximize revenue for the Permanent School Fund."
Texas has been joined by 15 other states in this lawsuit against the Biden administration. The lawsuit is taking place in the Western District of Louisiana. The Biden administration, at the time of this writing, has not responded to Buckingham's allegations.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, in conjunction with Judge Arthur Engoron, is attempting to financially cripple former President Donald Trump with a nearly half-billion dollar judgment and threat of asset seizure and liquidation following an overtly biased civil fraud trial.
That effort to bankrupt Trump may be for naught, though, as he stands to be about $3 billion richer in the near future, at least in theory, once an approved merger between Trump's media company and a publicly traded shell company is finalized, according to the Associated Press.
Whether Trump will be able to immediately make use of the new infusion of wealth to fend off the Democratic lawfare that aims to financially ruin him is still unclear, however.
On Friday, a majority of shareholders of the publicly traded shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. voted in favor of a merger deal that has been years in the making with the Trump Media & Technology Group, which is the parent company of former President Trump's social media platform, Truth Social.
Once that deal is finalized, Trump will reportedly hold a sizeable majority stake in the newly merged company, estimated to be around 79 million shares, which at the current stock price of DWAC would be valued at around $3 billion.
Trump may not be able to make use of that new addition to his net worth, though, as financial regulations generally impose a six-month "lockup" period following such mergers that prohibit company insiders from cashing in immediately by selling off their shares.
CNBC reported Saturday that the news of the approved merger between DWAC and TMTG resulted in a steep decline of roughly 14% of DWAC's publicly traded shares that are listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Those shares were reportedly trading at $44.20 when the exchange opened Friday morning but had fallen to $36.94 per share by the closing bell -- though the shares ticked back up to $38.55 per share in after-hours trading.
While that $38.55 per share price -- worth roughly $3.04 billion for Trump's 79 million shares -- is a substantial windfall for the former president, it is well short of the potential net worth infusion Trump might have received if the merger had been approved in January when DWAC peaked at $58.72 per share, which would have been valued Trump's shares at approximately $4.6 billion at that time.
One of the big questions now, according to CNBC, besides whether Trump can immediately cash in on those shares, is what will happen going forward with the stock price of the newly merged company, which will trade under the ticker symbol DJT, and whether it will continue to decline, hold steady, or increase.
The question of whether former President Trump can immediately make use of the newly acquired wealth he will receive from the merger is not just an academic exercise but rather is a pressing one with real-world implications, given the impending deadline for him to post an appeals bond equal to the nearly half-billion civil judgment against him in New York -- a bond he has reportedly faced difficulties in financing.
As noted, mergers of this sort between DWAC and TMTG typically include a six-month lockup to prevent insiders from immediately liquidating their shares, but according to Breitbart, that restriction can be modified or waived by the new company's board to allow Trump to either cash out or use the shares as collateral to obtain loans.
Of course, even if Trump gets the board's approval, other questions remain such as whether Trump can complete a sale of some of his shares in time to raise the necessary cash for the appeals bond or whether banks and lending institutions would accept the shares, and their inherently fluctuating value, as collateral for loans to cover the bond.
Those questions aside, it seems likely that Trump will receive the approval he seeks from the new company's board, given that it will be largely comprised of his allies, per the AP, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) as the board chair and company CEO, former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, former Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon, and former national security aide Kash Patel, among others.
Former President Donald Trump's oft-repeated complaints about the alleged ease and prevalence of election fraud were at least partially vindicated on Wednesday in Wisconsin.
That is when a jury convicted a former top Milwaukee elections official for creating fake identities to obtain military absentee ballots fraudulently ahead of the 2022 elections, according to the Washington Examiner.
Kimberly Zapata, formerly the deputy director of the Milwaukee Elections Commission, had the fraudulently obtained military absentee ballots sent to a prominent Republican lawmaker known for echoing Trump's claims about widespread election fraud.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that a jury deliberated for about five hours on Wednesday before finding Zapata guilty of one felony count of misconduct in public office and three misdemeanor counts of making false statements to obtain absentee ballots.
She was accused of misusing her work-issued laptop and her access to the state's voter system to create three fictitious identities and then request military absentee ballots on their behalf, all of which were sent to the home of State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Republican who has been outspoken in warning against the risks of election fraud.
Zapata did not testify during the trial, but a recording was played for the court of an interview with police in which she explained that she purposefully sent the fraudulent ballots to Brandtjen because "She is the most vocal election fraud politician that I know of, and I thought that maybe this would make her stop and think and redirect her focus away from these outrageous conspiracy theories to something that's actually real."
She further expressed in that interview her "hope" that other election officials would catch the fraudulent ballots before they were sent, and her defense attorney argued during the trial that, rather than engage in actual election fraud, Zapata had been acting not in her official capacity but rather as a "whistleblower" to draw attention to potential vulnerabilities in Wisconsin's election system.
Prosecutors rejected that claim, however, as Assistant District Attorney Matthew Westphal told the jury, "The appropriate way to raise a concern is to bring forth information, it’s not to commit a crime," and added, "If Ms. Zapata felt this information needed to be brought to light, there was multiple, legitimate avenues she could have taken. She chose instead to take the avenue of breaking the law."
He further argued that Zapata's duty as an election official is to defend the integrity of the voting system, and asserted of her fraudulent actions, "This was not acting as a guardian of our elections, a guardian of our democracy. This was her deserting her duty to protect and secure our elections."
According to the Associated Press, Zapata is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on May 2, and faces the possibility of up to five years in prison.
On Tuesday, before the conclusion of the trial, State Rep. Brandtjen said in a statement, "Until days before the 2022 election, I had never met or known Kim Zapata. Her case highlights a critical flaw in the online WisVote system, which allows individuals under indefinite confinement, overseas, or with military status to request and receive ballots without sufficient security measures. Moreover, the system permits ballot requests using a VPN, making it difficult to trace the origin of the requests."
"If Ms. Zapata had wished to raise concerns about the election process, she could have done so anonymously by contacting appropriate authorities rather than jeopardizing her job and reputation," the statement continued. "I cannot speak to Kim Zapata’s intent as I have never spoken with her. However, I reported the issue to the Waukesha Sheriff’s Department, requesting an investigation into those who requested the ballots, particularly since one had my last name attached. Regrettably, neither the Wisconsin Elections Commission nor any investigators have contacted me regarding this matter."
The GOP lawmaker noted, "Had Kim Zapata used a VPN and remained anonymous, I would have been suspected of creating my own ballot requests, a situation I could not have easily disproved."
"It is concerning that neither the legislature, the Governor, nor the Republican and Democratic parties have addressed the lack of confirmation for military ballot requests, as mandated by law," Brandtjen added. "The online WisVote system allows individuals to request and send certain types of ballots without verified identities."
Former Vice President Mike Pence revealed last week that he would not endorse the re-election bid of his former boss, former President Donald Trump, due to their falling out in disagreement during the aftermath of the disputed 2020 election.
Trump was asked this week by a reporter about the overt snub from his former VP and he replied dismissively, "I couldn't care less," according to Townhall.
He went on to outline some of the attributes that he was looking for in a potential running mate that, presumably, no longer applied to Pence -- at least in his view.
On Tuesday, after casting his vote in the Florida primary election alongside former first lady Melania Trump, former President Trump briefly addressed a gaggle of reporters and was asked for his reaction to the endorsement snub from former VP Pence.
"Oh, I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less," Trump replied without hesitation. "We need patriots. We need strong people in our country. Our country is going downhill very fast, very rapidly."
"Millions of people coming across the border. Coming from jails, prisons. Coming from mental institutions and insane asylums -- terrorists," he added. "We need strong people in this country. We don’t need weak people."
President Trump on Mike Pence withholding his endorsement: “I couldn’t care less.” pic.twitter.com/cs8JTv2u7R
— RSBN 🇺🇸 (@RSBNetwork) March 19, 2024
It was last Friday, during an interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, that former VP Pence said, "It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year."
"I'm incredibly proud of the record of our administration. It was a conservative record that made America more prosperous, more secure and saw conservatives appointed to our courts in a more peaceful world," he continued before mentioning a few issues where there were "profound differences" between himself and Trump.
"Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years," Pence asserted. "That’s why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign."
Former VP Pence was almost certainly never in the running to be included on former President Trump's "shortlist" of contenders to be his running mate in the current cycle -- a list that is believed to be "very long" and constantly fluctuating, according to a CNN report that cited unnamed advisers within the Trump campaign as its source.
It is believed that Trump has not yet made a final decision on who his vice presidential candidate will ultimately be, and he reportedly has been floating a variety of different names for the position in conversations with advisers, donors, Mar-a-Lago club members, and at campaign events and rallies.
One unnamed adviser told the outlet, "One day he is trashing someone, and the next day he is asking allies about that person as vice president. Sometimes he’s just curious what people think of them."
Currently, the list of possible VP candidates -- which is subject to change and in no particular order -- reportedly includes names like Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and J.D. Vance (R-OH), along with Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, plus former Housing Sec. Ben Carson, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, among a few others.
It has long been a general rule of American politics that the family members of elected officials, especially if they are young children or largely stay out of the public eye, are considered "off-limits" to undue media attention, criticisms, and partisan attacks.
That unwritten rule has been ignored by many who despise former President Donald Trump, such as former NBCUniversal senior executive Mike Sington, who recently posted that former first son Barron Trump was now "fair game" following his 18th birthday, Fox News reported.
Sington subsequently deleted the post and offered an explanation -- though not an apology -- amid significant backlash and credible accusations that he has been obsessively fixated on the former president's youngest son for many years.
Newsweek reported that Sington on Wednesday posted to social media a picture of former President Trump and Barron walking together and wrote, "Barron Trump turns 18 today. He's fair game now."
The post was deleted shortly after that when it was flooded with mostly negative replies, the bulk of which pointed out how "creepy" Sington's apparent obsession with Barron was, along with other complaints about the general impropriety of going after a politician's child who typically stays out of the public spotlight and isn't involved in politics at all.
In a statement provided to Newsweek, Sington attempted to explain his post about Barron: "I posted he was 'fair game' now, meaning, as an adult, he's 'fair game' for criticism from the press."
"Someone pointed out to me 'fair game' could mean fair game to be harmed," he added. "I don't wish physical harm on anyone, so I took it down. I listen to the comments and criticism I receive."
That supposed explanation doesn't really stand up, though, as few if any of the notable critiques of Sington's post made any mention of the "fair game" comment potentially provoking "physical harm," but rather were focused on his apparent obsessive -- and seemingly pedophilic, according to some -- fixation on Barron over the years.
Indeed, Twitchy published a lengthy exposé of dozens of Sington's social media posts about Barron Trump that date back to when he was just nine years old in 2016.
That included multiple posts tracking the former first son's birthdays over the years, as if they were a countdown until he reached the age of consent, and at least one post in which Sington, whether jokingly or not, openly expressed his desire that Barron would turn out to be gay.
Many of those posts also included multiple pictures of Barron or heralded the typically rare sightings of the boy who largely lived a private life while his father served in office, further belying the obsessive nature of Sington's posts.
The former media executive also made many posts that included the young first son in his sharply critical and often offensively speculative insults against the former president and first lady.
To be sure, Sington is not alone in having used Barron Trump over the years as a punchline or even a cudgel to attack the former president, as Fox News highlighted a few examples of such from other liberal Trump-haters over the years.
That said, those generally one-off attacks on Trump that mentioned Barron were usually followed by public apologies, which Sington has yet to do, nor did any of those others repeatedly and obsessively post pictures and commentary about Barron several dozen times, as Sington has done.
The Biden administration, along with two private organizations and El Paso County, sued the state of Texas to block the implementation of a new law, Senate Bill 4, that criminalized illegal entry into the state, authorized local police to arrest suspected illegal migrants, and empowered state judges to deport those detained illegal migrants.
A district court sided with Biden and enjoined the law, but that injunction was blocked by the circuit court, which prompted an appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled 6-3 on Tuesday that the law can go into effect while the litigation remains pending, NBC News reported.
The administration argued that only the federal government has the authority to enforce border security and immigration laws, but Texas counterargued that Biden has abdicated that duty through his lax enforcement policies and further cited a constitutional provision allowing states to enforce their borders during a foreign "invasion."
SCOTUSblog reported that Texas' SB4 was set to go into effect on March 5 but was blocked with a preliminary injunction by a federal district judge who ruled in late February that the new law was likely unconstitutional and violated prior precedents establishing the federal government's sovereignty over all matters relating to the enforcement of border security and immigration laws.
The Fifth Circuit, on appeal from Texas, issued an administrative stay to block the injunction and set April 3 for a hearing on the administration's request to allow the injunction to remain in place pending resolution of the dispute on the merits.
Meanwhile, the administration also appealed to the Supreme Court to lift the Fifth Circuit's stay on the injunction, and while Justice Samuel Alito imposed a temporary administrative stay of his own to buy time for the court to consider the matter, the high court's stay of the circuit court's stay of the district court's injunction was lifted on Tuesday, which essentially allowed the Texas law to go into effect, if only temporarily while the litigation proceeds on the merits.
The court's majority did not explain its reasoning for Tuesday's decision, but a concurring opinion from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, noted that the underlying dispute on the merits was far from being resolved at the circuit court level and lamented the increasing frequency with which administrative stays were being used as well as the Supreme Court's intervention in the case at such an early stage in the proceedings.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a dissent and argued at length that the Texas law should remain blocked by an injunction as she lambasted her conservative-leaning colleagues on the bench for granting "a greenlight to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos, when the only court to consider the law concluded that it is likely unconstitutional."
Justice Elena Kagen also authored a brief dissent in which she wrote, "My views of the merits are, as always in this posture, preliminary. But the subject of immigration generally, and the entry and removal of noncitizens particularly, are matters long thought the special province of the Federal Government. Given that established understanding, I would not allow Texas Senate Bill 4 to go into effect."
In reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X, "BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision SCOTUS allows Texas to begin enforcing SB4 that allows the arrest of illegal immigrants. We still have to have hearings in the 5th circuit federal court of appeals. But this is clearly a positive development."
Conversely, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, "We fundamentally disagree with the Supreme Court’s order allowing Texas’ harmful and unconstitutional law to go into effect. S.B. 4 will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement, and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border."
"S.B. 4 is just another example of Republican officials politicizing the border while blocking real solutions," she added while once again calling upon Congress to pass border security and immigration reform proposals that have been thoroughly rejected by the GOP as inadequate and exacerbating the problems at hand.
Unfortunately for Texas, the state's window of opportunity to begin enforcing SB4 was short-lived, as Breitbart reported that the Fifth Circuit almost immediately placed the law on temporary hold once again while it further expedited the proceedings.
According to NBC News, while the circuit court had initially fast-tracked the case and scheduled a hearing for April 3 on both the merits and the administration's request for an injunction pending resolution, that hearing was moved up to Wednesday, with a decision likely to follow shortly thereafter, which will almost certainly prompt more appeals for Supreme Court intervention in the matter.