Corporate Transparency Act Ruled Unconstitutional, but Scope of Judgment Is Limited

5 March 2024

On March 1, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama held the Corporate Transparency Act (the “CTA”) unconstitutional. The relief granted by the court is limited to enjoining the federal government from enforcing the CTA against the plaintiffs in the case, the National Small Business Association (“NSBA”) and Isaac Winkles, an NSBA member (together, the “plaintiffs”). The judgment, thus, leaves the CTA intact against other parties and is highly likely to be appealed. However, the court’s decision likely paves the way for further challenges to the CTA.

Background. The CTA was enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 and, generally, requires the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) to implement a beneficial ownership reporting regime, requiring companies to disclose information about their beneficial owners, senior officers and other control persons to the federal government.

FinCEN’s first regulation implementing the CTA was published on September 30, 2022 and went into effect on January 1, 2024. It establishes which entities must report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN, what information must be reported and when reports are due. See our client updates on the regulations here and here.

Complaint. The plaintiffs filed suit against the Treasury Department in November 2022, alleging that the CTA’s disclosure requirements exceed Congress’s authority under Article I of the Constitution and violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments.

Decision. The court held that the CTA exceeded the limits of Congress’s power but left aside (and undecided) the plaintiffs’ other allegations regarding violation of the Amendments enumerated above.

The government had argued that the CTA was authorized under three powers: (i) foreign affairs powers, (ii) the Commerce Clause, and (iii) taxing powers. In a 53-page memorandum opinion, the court rejected those arguments=

The court found that the CTA is not authorized under Congress’s foreign affairs powers because incorporation is an internal affair and is a power left to the states. The court stated that the foreign affairs powers cannot be applied to the “purely domestic arena of incorporation” in this fashion.

The court also held that the CTA is not authorized under the Commerce Clause. It found that (i) the CTA, by its plain text, does not regulate the channels and instrumentalities of commerce, and (ii) incorporation is a non-commercial activity, and the mere fact that many incorporated entities engage in interstate commerce is not sufficient to invoke the Commerce Clause. The court also stated that the CTA is not necessary and proper to Commerce Clause powers because it is not essential given similar requirements under FinCEN’s customer due diligence rule, which requires banks and other financial institutions to collect beneficial ownership information.

Finally, the court determined that the CTA is not authorized under Congress’s taxing powers because, although the collection of beneficial ownership information under the CTA can help the IRS with tax collection, simply being useful to tax collection is not sufficient to invoke tax powers.

Potential Consequences. The court’s decision is a blow to the CTA but, at least for now, its implications appear limited.

• First, the court’s final judgment enjoins the federal government from enforcing the CTA against the plaintiffs, but it does not extend beyond them. (State laws that mimic the federal CTA, such as the one enacted recently by New York State, are not affected by the court’s decision.)

• Second, and relatedly, in responding to the case, FinCEN did not extend the judgment to the reporting regime as a whole, limiting its reach to the plaintiffs and keeping the CTA website online and operational.

• Third, the government is highly likely to appeal the court’s decision and request a stay during the appeal. FinCEN implies an appeal is coming in its response to the court’s order.

All of this being said, this lawsuit is likely to spawn similar litigation, and the success of the plaintiffs may motivate others to try to achieve more broad relief under the same theories.

Next Steps. As noted above, although this court decision may portend limits on the application of the CTA, this outcome is far from certain. For the time being, it may be advisable to move forward under the assumption that the CTA and its implementing regulations will remain in effect, but interested parties should continue to monitor closely this case and others that may still come.

https://www.debevoise.com/insights/publications/2024/03/corporate-transparency-act-ruled-unconstitutional

Trump asks judge to cut the $83.3 million penalty in E. Jean Carroll case or grant him a new trial

Story by Kara Scannell, CNN • 18h

In a longshot bid, former President Donald Trump is asking the judge overseeing E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him to significantly reduce the $83.3 million jury award or grant a new trial. Trump argued that Judge Lewis Kaplan wrongly prohibited him from defending himself during his brief testimony and that warrants a new trial.

In court filings Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers said Kaplan erred when he stopped Trump from testifying about “his own state of mind” and when he gave an “erroneous jury instruction on the definition of common-law malice.” Trump’s lawyers said the jury should have been told they needed to find that it was Trump’s “sole, exclusive desire to harm” Carroll.

“This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

Before the trial began,Kaplan restricted Trump’s testimony, saying he could not deny raping Carroll or deny making the defamatory statementsfollowing a judgment that was already determined by a different jury in 2023. The judge made the attorneys preview what questions Trump would be asked and what his answers would be.In the end, Trump answered just a handful of questions.

The new legal effort comes as Trump has asked Kaplan for more time to post the bond, which is due shortly. Trump asked the judge to give him 30 days after the judge rules on post-trial briefs. Carroll opposed the request, saying Trump hasn’t provided any evidence that he can afford the payment. The judge is weighing the request.

In the latest legal motion Trump’s attorneys focused on Trump’s testimony and one exchange when Trump was asked by his lawyer, “Did you ever instruct anyone to hurt Ms. Carroll in your statements?”

Trump replied,“No. I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly, the presidency.” Carroll’s attorney objected and thejudge struck from the recordwhat Trump said after “no.”

“This was error, and it was prejudicial,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

Trump’s attorneys reiterated arguments made during the trial that Carroll didn’t connect Trump’s statements about her to the negative and harassing messages she received once she went public about being sexually assaulted by Trump in the mid-1990s. The judge previously rejected that argument.

Trump’s lawyers also argued the jury award was out of bounds with other verdicts and should be reduced.

The $7.3 million awarded for compensatory damages warrants a “significant reduction” to $125,000 or less, they said, since her harm was “garden variety.” The $11 million Carroll was awarded to repair her reputation should be reduced, they said, because it was “excessive” when compared with other verdicts, including the $1.7 million in reputation repair that a different a jury awarded Carroll in 2023.

Trump’s lawyers said the $65 million in punitive damages is “grossly excessive” and should be reduced to a 1-to-1 a ratio with compensatory damages.

Carroll opposed Trump’s attempt to lower the awards, calling one of his arguments “laughable” and saying the evidence showed that Trump’s defamation of Carroll increased after the 2023 verdict as he continued to make repeat the defamatory comments.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-asks-judge-to-cut-the-833-million-penalty-in-e-jean-carroll-case-or-grant-him-a-new-trial/ar-BB1jnX4N

(Some whistleblower needs to come out and reveal all of this case from start to finish was a lie, and she made the whole thing up. I’m sure there are people that know this.)

Four in custody as more body parts discovered scattered on LI — after 2 heads found: sources

Larry Celona, Kevin Sheehan, Steve Janoski Tue, March 5, 2024 at 11:37 AM EST·3 min read

Body parts: Four people were in custody after severed body parts of a man and woman were found scattered on Long Island last week — as authorities unearthed more remains, sources told The Post. The collars came Tuesday, after cops raided a home on Railroad Avenue in Amityville late Monday, sources and neighbors said. (Wasn’t there a horror movie with Amityville in the title?)

Although cops didn’t find any human remains at the home, they found more dismembered limbs hidden in Bethpage State Park and miles away in a wooded area of West Babylon, the Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement Tuesday.A man’s tattooed arm was found in Babylon, LI.

Authorities believe the newly discovered remains belong to the same two people whose body parts were uncovered Feb. 29 in Southards Pond Park in Babylon, the release said. Cops haven’t publicly identified the victims, but said in the release that the assortment oflimbs belong to a 59-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man, both of whom lived at the same address in the city of Yonkers in Westchester County.

“Based on the investigation, this appears to be an isolated incident with no threat to the public,” the release added. “The investigation is continuing. “

Police did not mention a possible motive for the killings.But sources told NBC New York that authorities are looking into whether the murders were linked to a possible love triangle. Thefirst body part was found Thursday morning by a girl walking to school with a group of friendson Siegel Boulevard — which is on the east side of Southards Park in Babylon, Suffolk County.

On Monday night, battering ram-wielding officers busted through the front door of one of the units on Railroad Avenue sometime around 10:30 p.m., a neighbor told The Post. “There were detectives and police going into my neighbor’s house, so I came over to see what was happening,” she said.

“They had bashed in the door, and there were a bunch of people standing inside the house, cops talking to my neighbors. They had already taken some people away.”

She said she doesn’t know much about the neighbors in question, except that they’re renters who work nights and brought a number of occupants with them.

“Cops were here all night,” she told The Post. “I watched as long as I could stay awake, and when I woke up in the morning, they were all still here. “One of them finally told me what they were looking for [and] what this was about,” she said. “I was terrified. I just stopped asking questions.”

The girl on her way to school called her dad after spotting a dismembered left arm in the bushes. Her father went to the scene, then called the cops to report the stomach-turning discovery, according to sources. Officers swept the area in a gory hunt, andeventually turned up more limbs and the two unattached heads.

None of the remains appear to have been in the park very long, police said Friday. “Preliminarily, it appears it’s a matter of a small amount of days, if not hours,” Suffolk County Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer told reporters Thursday night. One of the heads — as well as a right arm and leg — are thought to belong to the same female victim, law enforcement sources told The Post. The other head, as well as two arms, seem to be from the same man, they added.

The man’s tattooed left arm —which is missing fingertips — could mean the victim has a record, according to sources. Perhaps his killers didn’t want him identified through his fingerprints, because that might lead authorities to them, a source said. Police hope the tattoos will help identify him.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-custody-more-body-parts-163750038.html

RNC resolution to ban paying Trump’s legal bills is ‘dead’

by Lauren Irwin - 03/05/24 10:49 PM ET

Former President Donald Trump sits at the defense table with his legal team in a Manhattan court, April 4, 2023, in New York. Only 4 in 10 U.S. adults believe Trump acted illegally in New York, where he has been charged in connection with hush money payments made to women who alleged sexual encounters, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. More — about half — believe he broke the law in Georgia, where he is under investigation for interfering in the 2020 election vote count.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) failed to earn enough support from states to bring a resolution to ban paying former President Trump’s legal bills to a vote.

Henry Barbour, who serves as Mississippi’s national committeeman, confirmed to several news outlets that the resolutions he draftedthat would have prohibited the committee from covering the former president’s growing legal bills is dead.

The RNC is meeting Friday in Houston to elect a new chair after former Chair Ronna McDaniel announced she would resign on March 8.

Barbour confirmed to Politico that the resolution is “dead”and won’t be voted on during Friday’s meeting because he only received co-sponsors from eight out of 10 required states to bring the resolution to a vote.

Trump has already endorsed his preferred replacement for McDaniel’s former seat, RNC general counsel Michael Whatley. He also endorsed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to serve as the next co-chair.

Lara Trump previously said she would spend “every single penny” of RNC funds to reelect her father-in-law to the White House.

Republican critics say the move is Trump’s attempt to streamline the RNC with his campaign, prompting the major question of whether the party will pay his legal bills. Trump currently faces 91 felony charges across four separate investigations, and he was recently ordered to pay more than $355 million in a civil fraud case in New York.

Trump’s campaign advisers have said he won’t ask the RNC for help with his legal bills, but according to federal election filings posted in January, the former president’s fundraising committees spent nearly $30 million on legal fees in the second half of 2023. The Hill has reached out to the RNC for further comment

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4511516-rnc-resolution-to-ban-paying-trumps-legal-bills-is-dead/

(RNC needs to kick out all the Never Trumpers that are still delegates. And we need to find out the other 10 that supported this.)

You notice how everyone that is a diversity officer is black and women? Not very diverse.

https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1765064147991978209?s=20

Fani Willis romance controversy faces fresh scrutiny in Georgia

by Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld - 03/06/24 6:00 AM ET1/2

The romantic relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) and a special prosecutor she appointed to oversee former President Trump’s Georgia election interference case will face fresh scrutiny this week during two local government oversight hearings.Rather than in a courtroom, where many romantic details of Willis’s relationship with Nathan Wade spilled out into public view,their courtship will now be at the center of a state committee hearing Wednesday and before a county ethics board Thursday.

Meanwhile, Judge Scott McAfee, who oversaw the court proceedings examining Willis and Wade’s relationship and whether it constituted a conflict, is weighing whether to boot Willis from Trump’s case, with the judge signaling he will issue his decision by the end of next week.If Willis and her office are disqualified, it could throw Trump’s historic racketeering case into limbo.

McAfee’s looming decision poses a greater threat to Willis’s future overseeing the case than the proceedings set to unfold this week. But the hearings are still poised to keep her once-romantic relationship with Wade in the limelight as Trump and his allies pile on attacks.

Defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who first surfaced the romance between Willis and Wade in court filings, will appear Wednesday before the Georgia state Senate Special Committee on Investigations, which was formed in a 30-19 vote along partisan lines after the romance came to light for the express purpose of looking into the district attorney. Merchant confirmed she was subpoenaed to appear before the committee but declined to comment.

“If proven true, the allegations against District Attorney Willis would bring her and her office into disrepute; undermine public confidence in the fair, impartial, and disinterested administration of justiceby prosecutors across our state; and cast significant doubt as to the validity of the charges her office has brought in regard to the 2020 Presidential Election,” read the resolution creating the committee.

Merchant represents defendant Michael Roman, a 2020 Trump campaign operative who is charged alongside Trump in the racketeering case. Roman claimed Willis hired her romantic partner and has since improperly benefited from his work for the district attorney’s office via lavish trips they took together.

Willis and Wade maintain their romantic relationship began after she hired Wade in early 2022. Merchant led the questioning of Willis, Wade and their associates over three days of fiery hearings before McAfee.Now, the oversight bodies probing the prosecutors’ relationship intend to question her. The committee held its first meeting last month, days before the first courtroom hearing over the romance, when lawmakers suggested a possible need to amend state laws or take other actions in response to the information.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4510491-fani-willis-romance-controversy-fresh-scrutiny-in-georgia/

>>20526381

2/2

“It is not within our authority or our scope to disqualify counsel in any ongoing criminal investigations,” Georgia Sen. Bill Cowsert (R), the body’s former majority leader who chairs the committee, said at the meeting. The committee can subpoena witnesses and compel documents, and once its investigation has concluded, it is expected to author a report detailing its findings and any recommendations. However, the committee cannot directly sanction Willis. (Kemp and Carr could have done this already)

“This is not going to be a partisan process. That we have both parties included in this committee for a reason,” Cowsert said. “And it’s important for our validity that the public understand that this is not any type of political witch hunt, this is a quest for the truth, and we’re going to use the tools available for us.”

Then, Thursday, Fulton County’s ethics watchdog is expected to take up two complaints against Willis.The first complaint was filed by Steven Kramer, a Fulton County resident who cited the district attorney’s relationship with Wade and questioned whether she improperly benefited from his hiring. “The extra resources and financial costs for the court and the district attorney’s office, both paid for by Fulton County taxpayers like me, are to deal with this improper relationship,” Kramer wrote in his Feb. 14 complaint.

The second complaint was filed by internet-based talk show hostGregory Mantell. In a Substack post, he claimed Willis has violated “at least six sections and even more subsections” of the Fulton County Ethics Code. The Ethics board inquiry has been cheered on by national leaders such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who posted on social media that she’s looking forward to the hearing.

Back at the Fulton County courthouse, McAfee signaled he will release a decision by the end of next week on whether to disqualify Willis. As part of the judge’s decision, he is weighing conflicting claims of when Willis and Wade’s relationship began. Defense attorneys have continued to push to put more evidence in the record they claim bolsters their assertion it began in 2019, prior to Wade’s hiring.

Trump’s attorneys also want to enter Wade’s cellphone data into evidence, suggesting it indicated he visited the district attorney’s condo at least 35 times prior to his hiring. The district attorney’s office has pushed back on that notion, suggesting the data is unreliable.

Another wrinkle surfaced Monday when David Shafer, the former Georgia Republican Party chair who is also charged in Trump’s election case,proposed hearing testimony from a co-chief deputy district attorney in a neighboring county. Shafer’s attorney claimed the witness would bolster claims that Willis’s romance began before she hired Wade.

Hours later,Cathy Latham, a retired teacher who is charged for her alleged involvement in an elections office breach in rural Georgia, proposed yet another witness she said could testify with similar information: Manny Arora.

Arora is an attorney who represents Kenneth Chesebro, who took a plea deal in the case over his involvement in crafting the “fake elector” strategy.

Both lawyers say they were informed of the timeline of the Willis-Wade romance by Terrence Bradley, Wade’s ex-law partner and divorce attorney who was also under the microscope in McAfee’s courtroom. He was billed as Merchant’s star witness but walked back his splashiest claims when testifying under oath.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4510491-fani-willis-romance-controversy-fresh-scrutiny-in-georgia/

THEY BE FUCKED!

>>20526385

NO, NEVER IN THIS LIFETIME

>>20526271

Did he do this on purpose, because he knew they would be lying their asses off? Just like a lot of democrat congress never took the oath. (story from a long time ago). Brunson brothers I think

>>20526222

He had too, but what is the deal with China now?

>>20526123

Haley should just shut up now. We've heard enough lies to prove she is a traitor to America. she was supposed to the replacement China President for America, like Joe

>>20526094

her endorsement would be a curse, he doesn't need it and no one wants it

Democrats ready to hit panic button in Trump-Biden race

by Alexander Bolton - 03/06/24 6:00 AM ET1/2

Democrats are beginning to hit the panic button as an implosion in former President Trump’s campaign fails to materialize and a series of polls suggests President Biden is weaker than he was four years ago. Biden is trailing Trump in polls of several battleground states, underscoring concerns that his message isn’t gaining traction with swing voters.

Many Democrats thought Trump’s legal problems would submarine him, but the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision on Monday ruled in his favor on a 14th Amendment case. Other high-profile trials have been delayed, raising doubts about whether they will reach verdicts before Election Day. (Trump Curse is REAL)

Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said Democratic lawmakers “should” be worried about the emerging political picture.“If you’re Donald Trump and his team, you go, ‘Wow, I’ll take this any day of the week,’” he said, comparing Trump’s relatively strong political position with Biden’s faltering effort to get his message out to voters.

A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll published last week showed Biden trailing Trump in several critical states, including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.In those states, 48 percent of voters said they would back Trump, while 43 percent said they would back Biden.

Democrats heard another alarm bell over the weekend when a New York Times/Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden 48 percent to 43 percent among registered voters nationwide. The survey showed a majority of voters think the economy is in poor shape, and 47 percent of voters strongly disapprove of Biden’s job performance, the highest such disapproval rating of any point in his presidency measured by Times/Siena polling.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said the latest poll numbers are concerning, and he decried a separate decision by the Supreme Court to postpone ruling on Trump’s legal immunity claims to the summer as “outrageous.”

“We’re concerned. This is going to be a tough race, but it hasn’t really begun yet, so a lot of the coverage is just about Biden’s age, not about his policies,”he said. “The president is going to get out on the stump and he’s going to have an opportunity to show he’s got the energy as well as the intellect and the acuity to do the job.”

Welch acknowledged that “in retrospect” it was a mistake for Biden to pass up doing an interview with CBS news ahead of the Super Bowl, which would have allowed him to reach a huge national audience. “In retrospect, it would have been good to do the Super Bowl interview, throw a few deep passes into the end zone,” he said.

On the economy, Welch said the economic indicators are “solid” but people are “feeling some anxiety” about making ends meet when they pay the grocery bills.

But one of the biggest disappointments Welch and other Democrats have concerns the Supreme Court’s decision to not take up Trump’s assertion that he is immune from prosecution on charges related to his efforts to hold on to power after the 2020 election. The delay could put off some of Trump’s legal challenges until after the election.

“That’s outrageous. There’s no excuse for that,” Welch said of the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the immunity claims in late April, after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals resoundingly rejected Trump’s arguments. Asked if any of the high-profile criminal cases will adjudicated before Election Day, Welch said:“I’m not counting on them one way or another.”

“The decision that I think is the most glaring, egregious and wrong is the Supreme Court delay on the special prosecutor trial” over allegations that Trump tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 6, 2021, Welch said. Democrats suffered another blow Monday when the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in a 14th Amendment case brought from Colorado, which in turn affects similar efforts in Maine and Illinois to remove Trump from the ballot.

Trump and his allies in Congress celebrated the decision as a major victory and tried to use it as ammunition against his opponents.

David Axelrod, a former senior political adviser to President Obama, observed on CNN thatTrump’s court battles have given him the opportunity to sell his strength as a candidate. “All these indictments, all of these lawsuits and so on,have given him a chance to look indomitable, look strong, look resilient, and that’s actually in some ways helped,” he said.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4510890-democrats-ready-to-hit-panic-button-in-trump-biden-race/

>>20526541

2/2

While Democrats generally expected the Supreme Court to rule to keep Trump on the ballot,the unanimous decision underscored how weak the legal arguments were against the former president.

The bigger concern for Democrats is that the criminal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington and Miami and by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgiaare stuck in limbo and may not be resolved by Election Day.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) over the weekend lamented the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the arguments on Trump’s immunity claims as “a disappointment.” “Their delay in considering this critical issue, this timely issue, is going to delay the resolution of these cases by months at least,” he predicted on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Durbin on Tuesday insisted the presidential race “is far from over” even though “a lot of people in the press are trying to announce it’s over.”He noted that Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher briefed Senate Democrats about the national political landscape last week.

“I think we have a good candidate and a good story to tell,”he said, though he acknowledged that Democrats need to improve their political messaging to change voters’ view of Biden’s job performance and the economy. (KEK, KEK, KEK)

“We have to do a better job, and we certainly have the facts to turn to,” he said. “We have a good story (narrative/lie), a record of accomplishment and time to deliver it.” But when pressed about why Democrats still haven’t gotten their message to resonate with voters after declaring for more than a year they had a great story to tell, Durbin exclaimed: “It’s too early!” “People who want this done in March: Come on!” he said.

On Tuesday, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), an independent who counts toward the Democratic majority, announced she will not run for reelection. Polls showed Sinema trailing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) andformer news anchor Kari Lake (R) in a three-way race, but her departure may give Republicans a better chance of winning the seat.

“With recent polling showing Kyrsten Sinema pulling far more Republican voters than Democratic voters, her decision to retire improves Kari Lake’s opportunity to flip this seat,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (Mont.) said in response to Sinema’s announcement.

Daines and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) scored recruiting coups in recent weeks by persuading popular former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to run for retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-Md.) seat and multimillionaire banker Eric Hovde to challenge Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) in Wisconsin.

The Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), showed Democrats are taking the threat to Baldwin seriously by announcing it would pour $2 million into advertising to paint Hovde as a “third-rate banker from California” and an “out-of-touch carpetbagger.”

Ross K. Baker, a professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University, who has served several Senate fellowships,said the political picture is looking bleak for the Democrats but argued they still have a lot of time to change the political dynamic. “The president has not presented particularly well. He’s showing his age.The Senate map is very unfavorable to the Democrats,” he said.

He observed that while Democrats have a strong economy to tout, voters continue to view the economy negatively because of higher prices, even though unemployment has stayed near record lows and the rate of inflation is falling.

“Voters seem to focus on the data the least favorable to Democratsand emphasize that and tend to diminish the things that are in the works that will have a pretty substantial benefit on the American economy,” he said. (These people are delusionalso out of touch with the middle and lower class, there is nothing good about a boosted up economy with inflation and debt that is destroying our country)

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4510890-democrats-ready-to-hit-panic-button-in-trump-biden-race/

Russian missile nearly hits Zelensky’s motorcade

by Brad Dress - 03/06/24 11:02 AM ET

A Russian missile struck near Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s motorcade Wednesday in the city of Odesa.

The missile hit about 490 feet from the motorcade, which was accompanied by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, according to Greek outlet Protothema.

Greek and Ukrainian officials continued on their way after the missile strike and held a meeting in the southern Ukrainian city on the Black Sea.

Following the attack, Zelensky posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, but did not mention the Russian strike. (So they are making this up)

Zelensky said the two leaders had met at the site of a nine-story residential building that was hit by a Russian strike March 2 that killed 12 people. (They intentionally use public and residential buildings, if the leaders didn’t do this, others wouldn’t get killed)

At a joint press conference with Mitsotakis, Zelensky told reporters that the world “saw this blow today,” referencing the Russian strike that hit near his motorcade.

“You can see who we are dealing with. They don’t care where they strike,” Zelensky said, according to comments shared by Ukrainian media outlets. “I know there were victims today. I don’t know all the details yet, but I know there are dead and wounded.”

Russia has bombed cities across Ukraine as part of a campaign to subdue the Ukrainian people, including through targeting energy infrastructure.

The International Criminal Court this week announced arrest warrants for two Russian commanders allegedly responsible for bombing campaigns.

Zelensky has survived multiple assassination attempts in the war that began in February 2022 and has committed to traveling across Ukraine throughout the conflict, including to the front lines.

The Ukrainian president became famous for his quip shortly after Russia invaded, in which he said he needed “ammunition, not a ride,” referring to a U.S. request to evacuate him out of Ukraine.

Still, the strike in Odesa was a close call and points to a growing concern for Ukrainian officials such as Zelensky who continue traveling across the war-torn country. Last year, Ukraine’s interior minister died after a helicopter crash in Kyiv

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4512697-russian-missile-nearly-hits-zelenskys-motorcade/

NO news on RT about this.

6 Mar, 2024 15:17

Washington stands by remark on ‘battlefield surprises’ for Moscow

Despite setbacks, Kiev can still achieve victories, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller has said

Washington believes that Kiev will produce “some nice surprises on the battlefield” for Russia, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press briefing on Tuesday.

The phrase was used by outgoing Under Secretary Victoria Nuland during a trip to Kiev in January, expressing confidence in the capabilities of the Ukrainian army. Russia has since pushed them out of the strategically important city of Avdeevka in Donbass and has continued to advance, according to reports from the front line.

Miller was asked whether the US government shares this sentiment more than a month after it was expressed by Nuland. “We believe that Ukraine has a plan that they can execute to achieve victories on the battlefield,” he replied.

The spokesman cited Ukrainian claims that it sank a Russian patrol ship in the Black Sea this week as an example of Kiev’s successes. The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented on the reports.

This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Nuland’s pending departure from her post. He thanked his aide for having shaped Washington’s policy on Ukraine and Russia for many years.

Nuland is largely perceived in Russia as the ‘midwife’ of the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which paved the way for the current Ukraine conflict. Commenting on her trip to the country this year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked that as a rule, these types of visits do not “bring anything good.”

Shortly after her trip to Kiev, President Vladimir Zelensky sacked Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s top general, part of a wider overhaul of the military leadership. The Russian liberation of Avdeevka took place on the watch of Zaluzhny’s replacement, General Aleksandr Syrsky.

https://www.rt.com/news/593878-miller-ukraine-surprises-battlefield/

(I think the West should consider if Russia could hack calls from Germany and UK, they have other ways to find out the info they need. It seems like Russia is so far ahead of these arrogant people. Whether this is a threat or true, I don’t think it will work.)