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Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts signaled concern about relying merely on the "good faith" of the prosecutors to prevent abusive prosecutions against presidents if the Supreme Court rejects presidential immunity. "Now you know," Roberts told Dreeben, "how easy it is in many cases for a prosecutor to get a grand jury to bring an indictment. And reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough in some cases

As a long time reader/contributor here..... Are the Viking Kitties still a thing? I feel like I haven't seen IBTZ in ages.....

Thanks for your patience on the vanity. I want some educated feedback here. I just heard an interview with a Democrat Congressman who said they would not vote "Yes" on a spending bill for Ukraine & Israel if funds for securing the US Southern Border were also part of the Bill. So, that begs the following questions: 1) Why would any US Congressman *not* want to secure the US Border? What is the downside? And.... 2) How come no journalist EVER asks the above question of a Democrat politician? These two things seem so obvious to me, that to miss...

"Republican primary voters in the 2024 election may well still pick Trump to lead their party in 2024,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University and expert on political communication. “Trump will continue to attack the [party] leadership and wield his followers like a cudgel. I suspect that he’ll run and get the nomination and lose again in 2024. And I believe that the Republican Party is stuck with that outcome.”

We've lost one of our own.

Responding to fears of a Russian invasion, Mr Biden agreed with leaders of the UK, France, Germany and Italy to use "all the tools at their disposal". Moscow denies it has plans to attack. But Russia has moved thousands of troops near Ukraine's eastern borders, and Ukraine says tanks have been moved to the front line inside its territory. Hours before the video talks scheduled for 15:00 GMT, it appeared Washington was not planning a US military response, but focusing instead on tough economic sanctions. In a conference call on Monday night, the White House said the five Western leaders...

“They left us to whom? To those people who — they were always wanting to kill us?” Sara said. “And now I’m by myself here with 37 people? This is my fear. That if America could not help me when they were on the ground, how will they help me now when no one is here? That’s my question.”

This month, an intercontinental ballistic missile was fired in the general direction of the Hawaiian islands. During its descent a few minutes later, still outside the earth’s atmosphere, it was struck by another missile that destroyed it. With that detonation, the world’s tenuous nuclear balance suddenly threatened to come out of kilter. The danger of atom bombs being used again was already increasing. Now it’s grown once more. The ICBM flying over the Pacific was an American dummy designed to test a new kind of interceptor technology. As it flew, satellites spotted it and alerted an Air Force base in...

Right before the 2016 presidential election, on November 7th, Fivethirtyeight estimated that Hillary Clinton had a 67% chance of winning the election. Yet, Donald Trump crushed Hillary. Today, Fivethirtyeight thinks Biden has an 87% chance of winning the election. An almost slam dunk case. I disagree.

In the murky waters of the Strait of Malacca, about 90 miles south of Phuket, Thailand, four divers discovered a World War II submarine that was scuttled 77 years ago, now teeming with marine life. The wreckage, believed to be the USS Grenadier, was located last October by divers Jean Luc Rivoire, Lance Horowitz, Benoit Laborie and Ben Reymenants, the team announced this month. Over the subsequent six months, the men — one of whom, Reymenants, assisted in the 2018 rescue of the boys’ soccer team that was trapped in a cave in northern Thailand — completed six carefully planned...

“The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian religion, and one of the churches of my diocese without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for,” Budde said. “And to do so … he sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the church yard. I am outraged.” In Trump’s Rose Garden statement, he threatened to deploy the military across the country to “dominate the streets,” and Budde wanted to make clear that her diocese does not...

Experts think the new coronavirus originated in bats, then jumped to humans via an intermediary animal species. Initially, authorities in Wuhan, China — where the first cases were reported— thought that jump happened at a local wet market. Now, the Chinese CDC has ruled out the market as a possible origin site for the outbreak. Instead, it may have been the site of an early super-spreader event. Animals sold at the market were not infected with the virus, tests showed, which suggests that they couldn't have infected shoppers.

The UK government reportedly believes the coronavirus outbreak may have started in a Chinese laboratory. Most experts believe the outbreak began when animals passed COVID-19 onto humans in China. However, some scientists believe an accidental leak is a plausible alternative theory. UK officials are not ruling out the possibility that a laboratory close to Wuhan accidentally leaked the virus. A UK Parliament committee on Monday accused the Chinese government of spreading "disinformation" about the origins of the virus. "Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan," one UK government official told the Mail on Sunday newspaper.

The numbers have been devastating. More than 215,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases across the United States, with a staggering 84,000 in New York alone. A death toll — more than 5,000 at last count — that has already surpassed 9/11’s.

CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, known for his rough-and-tumble verbal battles with President Donald Trump, likely raised eyebrows among CNN viewers on Tuesday night when he praised the president’s new tone at the latest White House press briefing, claiming “this was a different Trump.” During the briefing, Acosta asked whether projections of up to 200,000 deaths would be lower if Trump had acted sooner, prompting the president to insist that he did act early. Trump did not spar with his longtime nemesis, even noting at one point that Acosta’s question was “fair.” “This was a different Donald Trump...

Conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 was engineered in a lab as part of a biological attack on the United States have been gaining traction online in recent weeks, but a new study on the origins of the virus has concluded that the pandemic-causing strain developed naturally. An analysis of the evidence, according to the findings first published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, shows that the novel coronavirus "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible." Researchers concluded that the novel coronavirus is...

The Labor Department released its February jobs report at 8:30 a.m. ET Friday. Here were the main results from the report, compared to consensus expectations compiled by Bloomberg: Change in non-farm payrolls: +273,000 vs. +175,000 expected and 273,000 in January Unemployment rate: 3.5% vs. 3.6% expected and 3.6% in January Avg. hourly earnings, month on month: +0.3% vs. +0.3% expected and +0.2% in January Avg. hourly earnings, year on year: 3.0% vs. +3.0% expected and 3.1% in January

en. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday backpedaled on his promise to release comprehensive medical records, saying his doctors have confirmed he’s in “good health.” “You can start releasing medical records ― it never ends,” Sanders told NBC’s “Meet The Press” when asked whether he planned to release additional medical records after having a heart attack in October. “We have released a substantive part of all of our background,” he added. “We have doctors who are cardiologists who are confirming that I am in good health. I am in good health.”

Nearing the end of his impeachment trial and on the eve of his third State of the Union address, President Trump’s job approval rating hit its highest level since he took office in the latest Gallup poll: 49 percent, compared to 50 percent of respondents who disapprove. The survey, released Tuesday, showed a gain of 4 percentage points in Trump’s approval since early January. It also was 3 points over his previous high-water mark of 46 percent in late April 2019, around the time special counsel Robert Mueller’s report was released.

Iran has a fake aircraft carrier. The vessel sat damaged for years, but it appears to be back in action, meaning its time for the country's armed forces to start trying to sink it again. Satellite images provided to Insider by Planet Labs and first reported by Defense One show that Iran appears to have completed or be close to completing repairs to its mock flattop, a painted barge resembling a US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, after damaging it during target practice in 2015.