An indictment for any alleged crime, the accompanying perp walk and ensuing court hearings may sound like a death knell for a politician on the ballot. But for Donald Trump — hardly a normal politician — it’s a gift. The former president has long thrived on chaos and turmoil as he’s successfully portrayed himself to his supporters as a victim of the establishment, the “deep state,” liberal forces and the mainstream media. And Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign quickly capitalized on the announcement Thursday that he would become the first former president in U.S. history to be charged with a crime. MANHATTAN DA ACCUSES HOUSE GOP OF ‘UNLAWFUL POLITICAL INTERFERENCE’ “The Radical Left – the enemy of the hard-working men and women of this country — have INDICTED me in a disgusting witch hunt,” Trump claimed in one of a handful of fundraising emails his campaign committees sent to supporters in the hours after Thursday’s breaking news.  “Please make a contribution — of truly any amount — to defend our movement from the never-ending witch hunts and WIN the WHITE HOUSE in 2024.” The Trump campaign announced on Friday evening that they hauled in over $4 million in fundraising following the indictment announcement. The campaign touted the grassroots nature of the donations – with an average contribution of $38 – and that a quarter of the money came from first-time donors to the Trump campaign. Word of Trump’s indictment came on the eve of the final day of fundraising in the first quarter of the year, and the surge in contributions should boost the former president’s campaign cash numbers when they’re likely revealed in the coming days. Trump is expected in New York City Tuesday after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him. He allegedly gave hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep her quiet ahead of that year’s presidential election over her claims she had sexual encounters years earlier with Trump. The former president denies sleeping with Daniels and denies falsifying business records to keep the payment concealed. TRUMP’S 2024 GOP RIVALS CHARGE INDICTMENT ‘POLITICALLY MOTIVATED’ In the hours after the media frenzy, nearly all of Trump’s actual and potential rivals for the GOP nomination defended Trump, most charging that the move by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was a “political prosecution.” The indictment firmly puts the 2024 spotlight back on Trump — where he wants it — and will make it more difficult for any of his rivals to gain traction, effectively freezing Trump’s position as the clear front-runner during the early legs of the primary battle. “In the short term, there’s a rallying effect, there’s a fundraising effect, which Trump is going to fully employ,” longtime Republican strategist David Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential and Iowa-based campaigns, told Fox News. South Carolina-based conservative consultant Dave Wilson noted that “it gives Trump a bump in the polls. It’s a natural thing because he’s getting news coverage again.” With the indictment looming, Trump had seen his lead in the polls over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis grow in the most recent surveys. Among those polls is one from Fox News released Wednesday that indicated Trump’s lead over DeSantis had doubled over the past month, from 15 to 30 points.  While DeSantis remains on the 2024 sidelines, he’s expected to launch a campaign later this spring or summer and is seen as Trump’s top rival for the nomination. TOP HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS OUTRAGED ABOUT TRUMP INDICTMENT: ‘A DARK DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY’ “The rumor that Trump is going to be indicted by the district attorney in Manhattan has helped him quite a bit among Republican primary voters,” Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts Fox News surveys with Democrat Chris Anderson, said earlier this week ahead of the indictment news. “They view the case as politically motivated, and it reanimates feelings that Trump is still fighting forces they see as corrupt and out of control.” Shaw said the indictment “is rallying Republicans to Trump, making Trump’s claims sound more legitimate” and making it “more difficult … for the other Republicans to get oxygen.” Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire’s survey center, noted that “based on past performance, the kind of bad news that would typically bury a candidate will likely fire up Trump’s base.” But the big question is whether a short-term bounce is sustainable. And as details of Trump’s alleged involvement with Daniels grabs outsized attention in the days and weeks ahead, will the former president suffer repercussions with social conservative voters who play an outsized role in Republican politics in Iowa and South Carolina, the first and third states in the GOP’s presidential nominating calendar? CHECK OUT THE LATEST FOX NEWS 2024 POLL “Longer term — we need to know more,” Kochel noted. “That stuff will roll out over the next several weeks and months as you go through the process. Iowa evangelicals aren’t going to like hearing about the former president paying off a porn star. There’s the potential for it to be a negative in the long term.” But Kochel emphasized that “Trump is very good in going to guns when he’s challenged like this.” Wilson said the question is whether Trump’s initial bump will be “sustainable over time.” “There’s going to be a question among certain evangelical voters as to whether or not this is something they want to wrap themselves around when it comes to Donald Trump. It’s a turnoff for some people, especially in the evangelical community,” Wilson said. In New Hampshire, which votes second in the GOP primary schedule, Neil Levesque, longtime director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, weighed in.  “This will mean that Trump is front and center as we go into the nominating process, whether good or bad. How much of a distraction and how much will other candidates be able to get attention is a big question,” Levesque said. “As this goes forward, how much will Republicans say, ‘Is this the best candidate we can put forward against Biden?’ Or will they double down and say, ‘He’s part of our tribe, we need to get behind him?’ Those are the great unknowns.”
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President Biden’s pick to be the next Labor secretary is already being accused by Republicans of supporting policies that would hurt gig economy and franchise workers, arguments that signal the GOP will look to topple yet another Biden administration nominee. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is the top Republican on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee that will consider the nomination of Julie Su, who became acting Labor Secretary after Marty Walsh stepped down in mid-March to lead the national hockey players’ union. Cassidy told Fox News Digital that based on her performance as secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, and as deputy Labor secretary, Su is wrong for gig economy workers. Cassidy said that during her tenure as California’s labor chief, Su supported a regulatory proposal known as AB5, which was aimed at tightening restrictions on who employers could classify as an independent contractor. He said Su would pursue] similar goals in Washington. “Julie Su has overseen the development of anti-worker regulations at Labor that would destroy the gig economy, striping 21 million individuals of their ability to be independent contractors and enjoy the flexibility it provides,” Cassidy told Fox News Digital. BIDEN LABOR SECRETARY NOMINEE OVERSAW BILLIONS OF DOLLARS LOST IN UNEMPLOYMENT FRAUD AS NEWSOM CABINET MEMBER Su also supported what became known as the “joint employer rule” in California, which was designed to extend a franchisee operator’s liability to the franchisor. Opponents of the provision argue that it would make it more difficult to create and sustain franchise businesses because it would unfairly make the parent company liable for incidents at the franchisee level, and in the end, make it more difficult to employ people in these companies. “She has made public comments about her intention to impose the joint employer rule on franchises nationwide. This would uproot the franchise model which employs over 8 million Americans,” the senator said. Cassidy’s comments are an early signal of the direction Senate Republicans will take as they consider Su, just weeks after they managed to derail two of the president’s high profile nominations in just one month with the help of moderates in the Democratic caucus. CONSERVATIVES REJOICE AFTER KEY BIDEN NOMINEE WITHDRAWS: ‘ENORMOUS VICTORY FOR FREE SPEECH’ Phillip Washington, Biden’s nominee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, bowed out shortly after Gigi Sohn gave up the fight to serve on the Federal Communications Commission. The two issues highlighted by Cassidy have the potential to again sap support from moderate Democrats in the Senate. As the Senate left for the Easter break, it wasn’t clear where moderate Democrats up for re-election in 2024 think about Su, such as Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Jon Tester, D-Mt., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. SENATE REJECTION OF BIDEN’S CONTROVERSIAL NOMINEES REVEALS ‘OUT OF TOUCH’ PRESIDENT, GOP SAYS While those senators approved Su’s nomination to be deputy secretary of Labor, those positions could shift. Manchin’s office told Fox News Digital that he “hasn’t made a decision” on Su’s nomination yet. CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP One Republican member of the Senate HELP Committee said that once again, the fate of this Biden nominee will depend on whether Senate Democrats stick together. “I don’t know that there’s a Republican for her,” Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital on Thursday. “So it’s going to depend on mostly the three or four Democrats that could actually derail the nomination.”
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Comedy is getting difficult in today’s world since reality so often feels like a joke, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon said. The Bee, the largest American right-wing satire website that thrives off parodying the news of the day, is struggling to come up with joke headlines as more and more news stories read like fiction. But Dillon also stressed the importance of using comedy to lighten the seriousness of contemporary issues. “We do satire and we’re trying to exaggerate reality to make a point with our jokes,” Dillon told Fox News. “We found that the world is very difficult to satirize right now because it’s so insane.” WATCH MORE FOX NEWS DIGITAL ORIGINALS HERE “We’re basically living in the upside down, as I might describe it,” he added. Dillon said his platform also has a political mission to make fun of bad policies and ideas. “It’s important to not just refute these things, but to actually ridicule and mock them,” he said. “We’re not helped by taking them seriously.” According to Dillon, satire resonates more when it’s about beliefs people may feel pressured to conform to even if they disagree with them. “It’s become much more relevant because of the insane ideas that are out there with basically people being pressured to affirm that two and two make five,” he said. “It’s really presented a lot of opportunity for comedians, for satirists, to play a role in pushing back on insanity with truth and reason.” GREG GUTFELD: THE BABYLON BEE IS TOO GOOD AT ITS JOB Dillon said policies around gender affirmation, wokeism and others frequently generate real headlines that read like parody.  He pointed to CNN calling a riot mostly peaceful while a reporter stood in front of burning buildings and colleges promoting segregation as a means to combat racism. “These are things you’d expect to see on a satire site, but they’re in the headlines every day,” Dillon said. The Bee saw the potential in funny, yet real headlines, leading the company in 2020 to launch “Not the Bee” — a website that covers real news that reads like satire. Dillon also said satire can be a useful tool to digest ridiculous but true stories that can stress Americans out. “I guess instead of just focusing on [the stories] in a negative way and becoming anxious, you know, being able to laugh at things that really deserve laughing,” Dillon told Fox News. He added that common feedback his readers give is “that they really appreciate that we’re keeping them sane, but also keeping them laughing, that we’re bringing levity.” Examples of recent Babylon Bee headlines include: “Putin Immediately Surrenders After U.S. Airdrops Nashville Police Officers Into Battlefield,” “Leadership: Biden Calls On Banks To Stop Collapsing” and “Doctors Report Startling Rise In Testicular Injuries Among Woman Athletes.” Dillon told Fox News that the Bee has tens of thousands of paid subscribers, gets around 25 million page views each month and has over a million subscribers on YouTube. BABYLON BEE CEO SETH DILLON ROASTS PRE-MUSK TWITTER: ‘COMPLETELY ANTI-TRUTH ENVIRONMENT FOR FREE SPEECH’ Dillon bought the platform in 2018 when it was a small blog that had a focus on making niche jokes for the Protestant community. But as their audience grew, Dillon said they turned to more political and cultural jokes. In response to critics who argue that the Bee spreads misinformation since its headlines are often believable, Dillon said he’s just doing his job.  “There’s supposed to be a grain of truth to these jokes,” he said. “If it wasn’t believable at all, then it wouldn’t be a good joke. It wouldn’t be funny.” He added that social media platforms have accused the Bee of violating misinformation policies. “It communicates a lot of insecurity, but that’s one of the reasons I think they’re coming after us,” he said. “I don’t think that comedy necessarily is the target of their attacks.” “I think the truth is what bothers them,” Dillon said, referring to the fact that the Bee uses humor to identify real problems with policies and other positions. According to Dillon, nearly 100 of his outlet’s joke stories later became fulfilled prophecies.  WHEN SATIRE BECOMES REALITY: NEARLY 100 BABYLON BEE JOKE STORIES HAVE COME TRUE “The problem isn’t that our satire is too close to reality,” Dillon previously told Fox News. “It’s that reality is too close to satire, so our jokes keep coming true.”  Dillon also thinks that trying to censor satire over offensive jokes isn’t a solution. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being offended by a joke,” Dillon said. “I think the real problem is when someone who’s offended by a joke says, you know, ‘you shouldn’t be allowed to make jokes anymore. You shouldn’t be allowed to joke at my expense.'” “We all deserve to be the butt of a joke — and it’s a much healthier state of mind to be in,” he added. “But the answer can’t be to stop making jokes. The answer should be to think, ‘well, why am I offended? Maybe there’s something to that joke.'” Click here to learn more about the difficulty of creating satire in today’s world. 
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A rise in nationalist militancy in Northern Ireland prompted the U.K. government to increase the threat of a terrorist attack to “severe” this week — but President Biden said Tuesday that won’t sideline his upcoming trip. “They can’t keep me out,” he told reporters ahead of this visit to the U.K. to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement signed April 10, 1998. Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency has raised the threat level of a domestic terrorist attack in Northern Ireland back up to “severe” — meaning an attack is highly likely — after lowering it just last year. NORTHERN IRELAND’S ‘TROUBLES’ MAY HAVE QUIETED, BUT THEIR ECHO HAS REACHED AMERICA The move was made following several attacks on police, including one that targeted an off-duty officer while he was loading soccer balls into his car last month. Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell was shot several times by two gunmen after he wrapped up a coaching session during a children’s soccer practice — an attack that echoed similar instances that were all too common during the 30-year period of unrest in Northern Ireland known as “The Troubles.” From the late 1960s through the late ’90s, over 300 police officers were killed during the violence that unfolded in Northern Ireland between Irish nationalist militants, who opposed British rule, and pro-U.K. unionists, the BBC reported. More than 3,600 people were killed during the period of violence, according to Reuters reporting.  NORTHERN IRELAND POLICE CAR HIT BY SUSPECTED BOMBING ATTEMPT: ‘A CALLOUS, HATE-FILLED INCIDENT’ Although violent attacks in Northern Ireland largely dropped following the Good Friday Agreement, nationalist dissidence did not diminish entirely and the U.K. government had kept the threat level regarding a terrorist attack at the “severe” ranking for 12 years before dropping it in 2022. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab called the need to revert the threat level to the highest ranking “disappointing,” but pointed out that republican attacks have still been on the decline since peaking in 2009 and 2010, the BBC reported. The New IRA, a dissident group that broke away from the political opposition party known as Sinn Féin following the brokered 1998 deal, sees small support in Northern Ireland as the main political parties continue to oppose their violent tactics. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris said in a written statement to members of Parliament that “the public should remain vigilant, but not be alarmed, and continue to report any concerns they have to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP He noted that police officers remain the top target of the republican dissidents, not the public.  “You should be worried for your police service,” Heaton-Harris added, according to the BBC. “I wouldn’t encourage people to be hugely concerned about their own safety broader than that.”
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Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been waging a battle for the last several months over what he called “woke” artificial intelligence, a fight that appears to have factored into his call for a six-month pause in the development of next generation AI systems. Musk was one of several signatories to a letter this week that warned of advanced AI technology that could pose “profound risks to society and humanity.” The letter said one of those risks is that AI might be used to “flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth.” The letter was signed by several notable technology experts, and it’s not clear who might have pushed for the inclusion of that specific phrase. But it jibes with the public fight Musk has been having since late last year over the ability of AI to constrain what people can say and read on digital platforms – a fight that involves a company Musk had a role in launching. In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company that released GPT-4 this month, a few weeks before the letter was released. GPT-4 is the latest edition of a language system that underlies the company’s ChatGPT tool that can receive inputs and generate human-sounding outputs. ELON MUSK, APPLE CO-FOUNDER, OTHER TECH EXPERTS CALL FOR PAUSE ON ‘GIANT AI EXPERIMENTS’: ‘DANGEROUS RACE’ Musk left the board of OpenAI in 2018 and explained that one reason why he left was that the company was chasing profits instead of serving as an open-source “counterweight” to Google. “Now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft,” Musk tweeted in February. He was referring to the $10 billion it received from Microsoft, an infusion that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has defended by noting that Microsoft doesn’t sit on the board of his company and does not control it in any way. But Musk’s opposition to OpenAI went beyond its funding model. Late last year, Musk made it clear he opposes the way OpenAI has been developing its AI chatbot. In December, Altman defended the rules developed to limit the ability of ChatGPT to produce controversial or insensitive outputs. “’AI needs to do whatever I ask’ and ‘I asked the AI to be sexist and it was, look how awful!’ are incompatible positions,” Altman tweeted. AI EXPERTS WEIGH DANGERS, BENEFITS OF CHATGPT ON HUMANS, JOBS AND INFORMATION: ‘DYSTOPIAN WORLD’ Musk tweeted in reply, “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.” In February, Musk had a similar reaction when a Musk ally tweeted that ChatGPT lists former President Trump and Musk himself as “controversial” figures, while President Biden and Bill Gates are not. Musk replied by tweeting, “!!” Also in February, Musk replied to a tweet that showed ChatGPT was unwilling to write a poem about the positive attributes of Donald Trump because it can’t produce content that is biased or partisan, but was willing to write a poem about President Biden. “It is a serious concern,” Musk replied. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ‘GODFATHER’ ON AI POSSIBLY WIPING OUT HUMANITY: ‘IT’S NOT INCONCEIVABLE’ OpenAI has a set of rules for using ChatGPT that get to the heart of Musk’s complaint about a “woke” AI system. According to the company, its tools can’t be used to generate “hateful, harassing, or violent content.” That includes content that “expresses, incites, or promotes hate based on identity,” “intends to harass, threaten, or bully” someone, or “promotes or glorifies violence or celebrates the suffering or humiliation of others.” Just days after Musk tweeted “!!,” press reports said Musk was recruiting AI experts to create his own non-woke chat AI system. A spokesperson for Musk at SpaceX declined to respond to a request for comment for this story. But one policy watcher in Washington agreed that Musk’s open battle against woke AI seems to be a significant factor in his call for an AI development pause. “Elon has been on the front line of the Twitter files, so he’s seen how bad the censorship can be,” said Jake Denton, research associate in the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center. “This is just so evident to everyone in this space… that [AI tech] is exceeding the pace of our ability to control it.” Denton said that while AI will have countless applications in the future, the early application most people are seeing today are things such as ChatGPT. “The consumer-known issue is the ChatGPT bias,” he said. “It’s obviously on a path to replace search. The average person will soon go to a chat-based AI system rather than a search bar.” “And that means the response, the information that they get when they enter a search query, is going to be… a curated thing with the restrictions of the AI company reflected in that answer,” he added. “That’s a major danger.” The letter signed by Musk and others called on governments to enforce a pause on AI research, a position that conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation seem inclined to support given the evidence of bias in current AI systems, even though it isn’t normally looking for a government solution. “I think regulation is absolutely what’s needed, government intervention in some capacity,” he said. “I don’t think we should move forward without such a thing. Our future shouldn’t be decided by unelected elites in Silicon Valley.”
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A federal judge in Tennessee temporarily blocked a law that would have restricted drag performances in front of children from going into effect. The restraining order was issued Friday, with the judge saying the legislation was likely “vague and overly-broad” in its restriction of speech. The bill would have otherwise gone into effect on Saturday. Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee signed the bill in February after it passed through the state’s legislature. The measure was designed to restrict drag performances in public or in front of children, as conservatives across the country argue that the shows are inappropriate for younger audiences.  Lee previously said the law would protect children from potentially being exposed to “sexualized entertainment” or “obscenity.” TENNESSEE BECOMES FIRST STATE TO BAN DRAG SHOWS ON PUBLIC PROPERTY, NEAR SCHOOLS There have been GOP-led efforts to limit drag in at least 15 states in recent months. The Memphis, Tennessee, judge sided with Friends of George’s, a Memphis-based LGBTQ+ theater group that filed a lawsuit against the state. “At this point, the court finds that the statute is likely both vague and overly-broad,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker said in the ruling. JEAN-PIERRE LASHES OUT OVER TENNESSEE LAW BANNING DRAG SHOWS NEAR CHILDREN: ‘WHAT SENSE DOES IT MAKE?’ Parker, who former President Donald Trump appointed, said the state had not justified with a compelling interest the restrictions it intended to impose. The debate about drag shows in Tennessee has largely centered on whether drag is inherently sexually explicit. Performers and civil rights groups have criticized the proposed drag restrictions, arguing that such regulations are unconstitutional, redundant under existing obscenity laws and would lead to more harassment and violence against LGBTQ+ people. Reuters contributed to this report.
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Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is asking her fellow House members to sign a letter calling on the Justice Department to end its prosecution of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is accused of publishing classified documents. The letter, which was obtained by The Intercept, is currently circulating among members as they are urged to sign it and has not yet been sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman, N.Y., Ilhan Omar, Minn., and Cori Bush, Mo., have signed the letter. The office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she intends to sign the letter. “I know many of us have very strong feelings about Mr. Assange, but what we think of him and his actions is really besides the point here,” Tlaib’s letter to her colleagues reads. “The fact of the matter is that the in which Mr. Assange is being prosecuted under the notoriously undemocratic Espionage Act seriously undermines freedom of the press and the First Amendment.” The letter comes just ahead of the fourth anniversary of Assange’s April 11, 2019, detention. JULIAN ASSANGE SUPPORTERS GATHER IN LONDON FOR EXHIBITION OF LARGEST PHYSICAL SHOWING OF CLASSIFIED DOCS Assange is facing a legal battle over his potential extradition to the U.S. regarding the publication of classified materials detailing war crimes committed by the U.S. government in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The materials also expose instances of the CIA engaging in torture and rendition.  If he is extradited to the U.S., Assange would face 17 charges for receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the espionage act and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He could be sentenced to as many as 175 years in an American maximum security prison. The Wikileaks founder has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2019 for breaching jail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations he raped two women. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped. Tlaib’s cites last year’s open letter from the editors and publishers of U.S. and European news outlets that worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak. “The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel have taken the extraordinary step of publishing a joint statement in opposition to the indictment, warning that it ‘sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,’” Tlaib wrote to House members. NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS CALL ON US TO END PROSECUTION OF JULIAN ASSANGE The congresswoman also warned that major news outlets could later be prosecuted for publishing accurate information using classified materials if the case against Assange is successful. “Mr. Assange’s prosecution marks the first time in US history that the Espionage Act has been used to indict a publisher of truthful information,” she wrote. “The prosecution of Mr. Assange, if successful, not only sets a legal precedent whereby journalists or publishers can be prosecuted, but a political one as well. In the future, the New York Times or Washington Post could be prosecuted when they publish important stories based on classified information. Or, just as dangerous, they may refrain from publishing such stories for fear of prosecution.” The Cablegate documents for which Assange is facing prosecution were leaked to WikiLeaks by then-U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, who was convicted in 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses. The Obama administration did not indict Assange over Wikileaks’ publication of the cables in 2010 because it would have also had to do the same to other journalists from major news outlets. But former President Trump’s Justice Department later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued pursuing his prosecution. The U.S. government has purported that Assange’s publication of classified material put its sources and allies in danger, although this claim is without evidence. And the CIA during the Trump administration, reportedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as “Vault 7.” The agency said this publication represented “the largest data loss in CIA history.” According to a 2021 Yahoo report, the CIA had discussions “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration during this time about plans to assassinate Assange in London. Acting on orders from then-CIA director Mike Pompeo, the agency had drawn up kill “sketches” and “options.”  The agency had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the report. Many Democrats still hold a negative view of Assange over publications blamed for hurting Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances in 2016. Wikileaks had published internal communications between the Democratic National Committee and then-presidential candidate Clinton’s campaign. The communications revealed the DNC’s attempts to boost Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary.
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The huge costs of the green transition are in part responsible for a more sustained period of higher interest rates.
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This could be a case of ideology trumping actual animal welfare.

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WisPolitics.com reports that progressive Milwaukee judge Janet Protasiewicz continues to hold a decisive advantage in the ad wars.

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