CNN anchor Boris Sanchez came prepared Wednesday during an interview with Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), fact-checking several false claims relating to the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and at one point holding up a blown-up copy of a check that the congressman was referencing to try to make his case.
On CNN News Central, Tiffany called for Biden to be held “accountable,” even as House Republicans have struggled to name any specific illicit actions worthy of impeaching the Democratic president.
When Sanchez asked what specific charges he would like to see brought, Tiffany referenced Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, but declined to mention that the time period he cited came after the elder Biden was vice president—and when he did not hold government office at all.
Tiffany insisted that Biden “has a check in the amount of $40,000 that has his name on it.”
“You’ve got another $200,000 check that came from Jim and Sarah Biden to him,” he said, as Sanchez held up a copy of that very check from 2018.
“Sir, I have that check right here,” Sanchez said, noting the year. “And it actually says that this was a reimbursement. This was a loan repayment from his brother.”
Tiffany then shifted gears.
“So, you can make the case that the Bidens did not do this while Joe Biden was vice president, but I think it’s contrary to record,” he asserted, despite having just been shown the date on the check.
Tiffany then claimed incorrectly that when Biden was vice president, he “called off the prosecutor in Ukraine in regards to the Burisma investigation”—a reference to the Ukrainian energy company that his son Hunter was once a board member on.
“Oh, sir, that has been debunked,” he said. “That prosecutor was unanimously disliked by both Republicans and Democrats. And even EU officials said that he was corrupt and they wanted him out.”
“So rude of you”: Republican snaps after Democratic lawmaker reminds him that a jury convicted Trump
Marin Scotten – June 12, 2024
Ralph Norman Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., snapped at a Democratic colleague Tuesday after being interrupted during a meeting of the the House Rules Committee.
“Listening to these smokescreens that my friends on the other side of the aisle are saying, they bring up the trial of Donald Trump, convicted felon. Really? By a judge that is a known anti-Trumper?” Norman said before Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., interrupted him.
“A jury, a jury, not by a judge,” Nadler corrected.
“Mr. Nadler, I’ve got the floor!” Norman shouted. “If you gonna interrupt — Mr. Chairman, calm him down when he interrupts. It’s my time and I’ll let you respond, but I’m tired of this. You talk over everybody. It’s so rude of you!”
After Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsying of business records last month, Democrats have been quick to remind everyone that Trump is, in their words, a “convicted felon.”
Republicans, however, have criticized the judge who oversaw Trump’s trial for donating a total of $35 to the Democratic Party in 2020, including $15 to the Biden-Harris campaign.
In the meeting, Norman brought up Hunter Biden, who was found guilty of three felony counts on Tuesday and faces up to 25 years in prison for lying about his drug addiction when he purchased a firearm. Norman said it was “strange” Biden was prosecuted for those charges but not some of Biden’s business dealings; despite months of investigations, Republicans have failed to uncover any evidence of criminality.
“I’m tired of these smokescreens, you’re talking about miscarriage of justice, it really is,” Norman said.
In the same meeting, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., slammed Republicans for similar accusations, namely that Democrats have “weaponized” the justice system after Trump’s felony convictions. Some Republicans have gone so far as to claim Biden orchestrated his son’s guilty verdict to create an “equal illusion of justice,” MSNBC reported.
“That is how you think when you’re in a cult,” McGovern said of the GOP conspiracy theories. He also contrasted Republican leaders’ reaction to Trump’s conviction with Biden’s reaction to his son’s conviction; the president has said he accepts the outcome of his son’s trial and “will continue to respect the judicial process.”
“It’s a great reminder that one political party remains committed to the rule of law and the other doesn’t,” McGovern said.
Rachel Maddow Shows Donald Trump’s Shift From ‘Incoherent’ To ‘Pornographically Violent’
Lee Moran – June 12, 2024
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday slammed Donald Trump, saying the former president is now “really, really, frequently incoherent.”
“And when he’s not incoherent, he’s speaking in terms that are pornographically violent when he is trying to rile up his audience,” Maddow told network colleague Nicolle Wallace on the latter’s “Deadline: White House” show.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vbf7oH3of5M%3Frel%3D0
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee “speaks in ways that I think would be shocking to a lot of the public if people could stand to listen to him for longer than they do and if news organizations could responsibly broadcast him more than we do, but we responsibly often can’t because of the lies and threats that he’s floating,” Maddow noted.
Talking about Trump’s ramblings on sharks and electrocution during a campaign rally in Las Vegas last weekend, Maddow said he’ll now double down on them and Republicans will fall in line.
Alito’s Wife Caught on Tape Spewing Venom at Everyone
Edith Olmsted – June 11, 2024
A secret tape has exposed what Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, really thinks behind closed doors—and the truth isn’t pretty. In the span of just a few minutes, Alito promised revenge on the media, flung around terms like “femnazis,” lauded her German heritage, and went off about Pride flags. It was a mess.
Alito has been in and out of the news in the last month, after her high-ranking husband blamed her for hanging an upside-down American flag outside of their home, a symbol favored by the “Stop the Steal” movement following the 2020 presidential election. She supposedly hung the flag in response to a neighbor’s “F— Trump” sign, which sparked the rather unneighborly spat. Alito also engaged in some light menacing as part of the feud, prompting the neighbor to call the cops on the Alitos. Still, Justice Alito has refused calls to recuse himself from cases relating to the January 6 insurrection.
Journalist Laura Windsor recorded Martha-Ann’s and her husband’s comments during the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner earlier this month. A copy of the tape was published on Monday by Rolling Stone.
Windsor first approached Martha-Ann, posing as a Christian conservative, to express her sympathy over “everything that you’re going through,” referring to the highly publicized flag hanging.
“It’s OK because if they come back to me, I’ll get them,” Alito said cheerfully. “I’m gonna be liberated and I’m gonna get them.”
“What do you mean by ‘they?’” Windsor asked.
“There is a five-year defamation statute of limitations,” Alito said, letting out a laugh.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘they’, like by ‘get them’?” Windsor pressed.
“The media!” Alito said, going on to complain about her coverage in The Washington Post style section from nearly two decades ago.
It appears Alito doesn’t forget about the journalists who’ve gotten on her bad side. In 2016, Alito was reportedly enthusiastic about Trump’s promise to expand U.S. libel laws to make it significantly easier to sue news outlets for their coverage, one GOP operative told Rolling Stone.
While maintaining her cheerful tone, Alito also took aim at any woman who suggested her husband should’ve prevented her from hanging an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol revived by a Christian nationalist sect and favored by January 6 insurrectionists, at their vacation home.
“The other thing the femnazis believe, that he should control me,” Alito said about her husband. “So, they’ll go to hell. He never controls me.”
When Windsor asked what someone who has the same flag should do, Alito responded simply, “Don’t get angry, get even.”
There was one group that Alito seemed to admire, and it’s not exactly one that people are often openly praising. “Look at me, look at me. I’m German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me. I’m gonna give it back to you. And there will be a way, it doesn’t have to be now, but there will be a way they will know. Don’t worry about it,” she said.
When Windsor tried to ask Alito about the political divide in the United States and her thoughts on the “radical Left,” about which her supposedly nonpolitical husband had plenty to say, Alito cut her off to complain about Pride flags.
“You know what I want? I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month,” she said.
“And he’s like, ‘Oh please, don’t put up a flag.’ I said, ‘I won’t do it because I’m deferring to you. But when you are free of this nonsense I’m putting it up, and I’m gonna send them a message every day. Maybe every week I’ll be changing the flags. They’ll be all kinds,’” she said, fantasizing about the day when she could finally antagonize her neighbors who support the LGBTQ+ community.
Alito even explained she had invented a flag that says, “Vergogna,” which means “shame” in Italian. “Shame, shame, shame on you,” Alito added darkly.
One can scarcely believe that her husband ruled in favor of allowing businesses to discriminate against people who identify as LGBTQ+.
Macron’s election call unsettles Paris Olympics build-up
Cyril Touaux – June 10, 2024
France will hold snap elections just weeks before the Paris Olympics (Ludovic MARIN)
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo on Monday described the prospect of French parliamentary elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as “extremely unsettling”, while the International Olympic Committee played down any direct impact on the event.
“Like a lot of people I was stunned to hear the president decide to do a dissolution (of parliament),” Hidalgo said of Emmanuel Macron’s decision to call snap parliamentary elections on Sunday.
The surprise announcement came after hugely disappointing European parliament election results for the centrist president which Hidalgo said meant the president “could not continue as before”.
“But all the same, a dissolution just before the Games, it’s really something that is extremely unsettling,” the 64-year-old Socialist, a domestic political rival of the president, added during a visit to a Paris school.
The two-round parliamentary elections have been called for June 30 and July 7, with the Paris Olympics set to begin less than three weeks later on July 26.
The vote could lead to political instability in the event of another hung parliament in which no party wins a majority, or a seismic change if the far-right National Rally party of Marine Le Pen emerges as the biggest party nationally.
Rumours in Paris had previously suggested Macron might dissolve parliament after the Games, with the 46-year-old head of state possibly eyeing a bounce in the polls if the first Games in France in 100 years were deemed a success.
Hidalgo stressed that from an operational perspective the elections would not affect the Olympics, a message echoed by the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, who was with her during the school visit.
“I think that all the work of installing, of preparing the Games, the infrastructure, is behind us and what remains is to welcome the entire world and we will do it with the joy that we have to host these Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris,” Hidalgo said.
Bach said the elections are “a democratic process which will not disturb the Olympics”.
“France is used to doing elections and they are going to do them once again. We will have a new government and a new parliament and everyone is going to support the Olympics,” Bach said.
– Divided country –
The Paris Olympics begin with an unprecedented open-air ceremony on the river Seine on July 26, the first time the opening festivities for a Summer Olympics have taken place outside the main stadium.
Organisers have consistently talked up the ambitions of their vision, promising “iconic” Games that will see the world’s biggest sports event play out against the historic backdrop of the City of Light.
Worries so far had focused on security arrangements for the opening ceremony, and whether the river Seine would be cleaned up in time to hold the open-water swimming events and triathlon as expected.
Repeated strike threats from trade unions have also cast a shadow over preparations, as did public feuding over the choice of music for the opening ceremony and the official poster — indicators of France’s starkly divided political class.
Those divisions were illustrated during Sunday’s European elections, in which anti-immigration and far-right parties won almost 40 percent of the vote, inflicting heavy defeat on Macron’s centrist allies.
The snap parliamentary elections raise question marks over the government that will be in place at the time of the Olympics, with ministers such as transport and interior set to play key roles in ensuring the smooth functioning and safety of the event.
The two-stage election will also mobilise hundreds of thousands of security forces, further straining resources.
“For the preparations, the installations are ready, accreditations have been sent, plans put in place for transport: everything is primed, it remains only to be put in place,” Jean-Loup Chappelet, an Olympics expert at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, told AFP.
He also played down the impact of any personnel changes in the cabinet.
“Nothing will change between now and July 8 in the preparations of the Games and afterwards it will be absolutely too late to change anything,” he added.
David Roizen, an Olympics expert at the left-leading Jean Jaures Foundation think-tank in Paris, said the political turmoil would put an end to a “largely successful” phase for organisers, including the ongoing Olympic torch relay.
“It risks ending the positive dynamic, meaning that people only talk about the Olympics from a security perspective,” he told AFP.
N. Korea sends more balloons as Kim’s sister warns of ‘new counteraction’
Hieun Shin and Cat Barton – June 10, 2024
In recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons into the South, carrying trash like cigarette butts and toilet paper (Handout)
North Korea has sent hundreds more trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, Seoul’s military said Monday, after Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister warned of further responses if the South keeps up its “psychological warfare”.
In recent weeks, North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons into the South, carrying trash like cigarette butts and toilet paper, in what it calls retaliation for balloons laden with anti-Pyongyang propaganda floated northwards by activists in the South, which Seoul legally cannot stop.
The South Korean government this month fully suspended a 2018 tension-reducing military deal and restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the border in response to Pyongyang’s balloons, infuriating the North which warned Seoul was creating “a new crisis”.
Kim’s sister and key government spokeswoman Kim Yo Jong said in a statement released early Monday that South Korea would “suffer a bitter embarrassment of picking up waste paper without rest and it will be its daily work”.
In the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, she slammed the activists’ leaflets as “psychological warfare” and warned that unless Seoul stopped them and called off the loudspeaker broadcasts, the North would hit back.
“If the ROK simultaneously carries out the leaflet scattering and loudspeaker broadcasting provocation over the border, it will undoubtedly witness the new counteraction of the DPRK,” she said, referring to both countries by their official n
Seoul’s military said the North had sent more than 300 trash-carrying balloons overnight, but that the winds had not worked in Pyongyang’s favour.
“Although they launched over 310 balloons many of them flew toward North Korea,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that around 50 had landed in the South so far, with more expected.
They said that the latest batch of trash balloons had been found to contain waste paper and plastic, but nothing toxic.
“So far we haven’t seen any special movement within the North Korean military,” a JCS official said, adding that they had “detected signs of North Korea installing loudspeakers to broadcast to the South in the front area.”
North Korea has also used its own loudspeakers along the border since the 1960s, typically broadcasting praise of the Kim family, but it suspended them in 2018 as ties warmed
– ‘Beyond our imagination’ –
The statement from Kim’s sister shows that “North Korea is raising its voice in order to shift the blame for the current situation to South Korea and also to justify their provocation,” Kim Dong-yub, professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
The cycle of escalation will likely continue and “North Korea will do something beyond our imagination,” Kim said.
Pyongyang could do “something creative like throwing flour (which) will cause absolute panic in the South which they will be happy about,” Kim added, referring to the possibility of the North faking a biological attack on the South.
The tit-for-tat balloon blitz started in mid-May when activists in the South — including North Korean defectors — sent dozens of missives carrying anti-Kim propaganda and flash drives of K-pop music northwards.
In 2018, during a period of improved inter-Korean relations, the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to “completely cease all hostile acts”, including stopping the leaflets and broadcasts.
The South Korean parliament passed a law in 2020 criminalising sending leaflets to the North, but activists did not stop and the law was struck down by the Constitutional Court last year as an undue limitation on free speech.
In 2018, Seoul also dismantled some of the loudspeakers, a tactic that dates back to the Korean War and which infuriates Pyongyang, which previously threatened artillery strikes against the loudspeaker units unless they were switched off.
Both sides are now facing a risky proposition, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“Seoul does not want military tension at the inter-Korean border, and Pyongyang does not want outside information threatening the legitimacy of the Kim regime,” he said.
“North Korea may have already miscalculated, as South Korea’s democracy cannot simply turn off NGO balloon launches the way an autocracy would expect.”
The Success Narratives of Liberal Life Leave Little Room for Having Children
By Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman – June 10, 2024
Dr. Berg and Ms. Wiseman are the authors of the forthcoming book “What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice.”
Credit…Andrea Settimo
For young, secular, politically progressive men and women, having children has become something of an afterthought. Liberal conventional wisdom encourages people to spend their 20s on journeys of personal and professional self-discovery and self-fulfillment. Children are treated as a bonus round, something to get to only after completing a long list of achievements: getting a degree, forging a satisfying and well-established career, buying a house, cultivating the ideal romantic partnership.
The standards of readiness for family are at once so high and so vague that it’s hardly a surprise when people fail to reach them. Indeed, the data suggest that people are having children later than they used to and are having fewer than they’d like.
For progressives, waiting to have children has also become a kind of ethical imperative. Gender equality and female empowerment demand that women’s self-advancement not be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood. Securing female autonomy means that under no circumstances should a woman be rushed into a reproductive decision — whether by an eager partner or tone-deaf chatter about ticking biological clocks. Unreserved enthusiasm for having children can come across as essentially reactionary.
Over the past four years, we’ve conducted interviews and surveys with hundreds of young Americans about their attitudes toward having children. These conversations revealed that the success narratives of modern liberal life leave little room for having a family. Women who want kids often come to that realization belatedly, at some point in their early 30s — the so-called panic years. If they are lucky, their partner (if they have one) will fall in line. If they are not, they face a choice of returning to the dating pool, freezing their eggs (if they haven’t done so already), single parenting or giving up their hope of having kids of their own.
In this way, the logic of postponement that has been promoted by liberals and progressives — and bolstered by overblown optimism about reproductive technologies — robs young people of their agency. How many children they have, and even whether they have them at all, is increasingly a decision made for them by circumstance and cultural convention.
This is not just a recipe for unhappiness; it also reflects a deep confusion. There is nothing inherently unprogressive about embracing the prospect of children. Even Simone de Beauvoir, the philosopher who was among the first to critique reproduction and family as instruments for the oppression of women, acknowledged that shaping the character and intellect of another human being was “the most delicate and the most serious undertaking of all.” While certain conservative visions of family life — such as “trad wives” and Silicon Valley pronatalism — no doubt have little to offer those on the left, our fellow progressives need to stop thinking of having children as a conservative hobbyhorse and reclaim it for what it is: a fundamental human concern.
The family — recognized as the seat of customs and traditional values — has long been central to the appeal of conservatism. Yet it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans and Democrats fought over who could rightfully claim to be the party of “family values.” Bill Clinton, while campaigning for president against George H.W. Bush in 1992, assailed the Republican Party’s commitment to families as little more than hypocrisy. “Where are they,” he asked, “when there is no health care for pregnant women? When too many children are born with low birth weights?” Mr. Clinton went on to announce a 14-point “American Family Values Agenda.”
But in time, liberals and progressives came to shy away from publicly embracing the American family as a symbol and an ideal. After Mr. Clinton was impeached in the wake of his own family-values hypocrisy and George W. Bush was elected with the help of energized evangelical voters, family-friendly rhetoric became anathema to liberals — perceived as phony, intrusive and toxic. (The notable exception was gay marriage, whose legalization was won with the help of arguments that promoted the virtues of families.) Today, the left proudly defends the sacrosanct right to abortion and reproductive justice while almost entirely sidestepping the question of whether having children is a worthy project to begin with.
The stark polarization of today’s public discourse has only heightened the left’s wariness of children, both privately and politically. Progressive policy defeats are often met with anti-natalist grandstanding. Members of the ecological activist group BirthStrike, founded in 2018, declared that they were protesting climate inaction by refusing to have kids. The following year, shortly after proposing legislation for a Green New Deal, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York broadcast progressives’ hesitancy to reproduce in the face of climate change to her 2.5 million Instagram followers when she said, “It does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”
The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, has also made liberals and progressives more uneasy with the idea of starting a family. A year after Dobbs, the reproductive-rights journalist Andrea González-Ramírez wrote that she had been contemplating having children in her early 30s, before the Supreme Court’s decision put an end to all that: “I have never been sure that I desire to be a mom, let alone that I desire it enough to assume the risks. These days, however, that door is shut. I choose myself.”
That choice is not uncommon. In a recent study, 34 percent of women ages 18 to 39 reported that they or someone they know had “decided not to get pregnant due to concerns about managing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.” That might sound like a worry about abortion access, but the study suggested that Dobbs intensified ambivalence about having children more generally. Indeed, of the women who said they were forgoing having children because of the Dobbs ruling, about half lived in states where abortion rights were still protected.
One can’t help noting the irony: In permitting the conservative movement to alienate them from the question of whether they want to have and raise children, these liberals and progressives are allowing the right to shape their reproductive agendas in yet another way.
But the partisan framing of the issue is flawed at a more fundamental level. The question of children ultimately transcends politics. In deciding whether to have children, we confront a philosophical challenge: Is life, however imperfect and however challenging — however fraught with political disagreement and disaster — worth living?
To be sure, having children is not the only way to address this question. But having children remains the most basic and accessible way for most of us to affirm the value of our lives and that of others. This is in part because becoming a parent represents one of the greatest responsibilities one human being can assume for another. And it is also because the perpetuation of human life is the condition of possibility for every other thing we care about.
Committing oneself to long-term leftist causes like economic, environmental, racial and social justice is more than just compatible with embracing children and family life. It presupposes a willingness to take personal and collective responsibility for the next generation — raising, nurturing and educating those who will decide the fate of our country and our planet.
Surely, progressives and conservatives will give as vastly different answers to the question of what raising children ought to look like as they will to the question of how American society ought to be governed. But progressives must not let partisan loyalties stop them from thinking about the ways in which having children does or does not express their values, and what shape they really want their lives to take. Children are too important to allow them to fall victim to the culture wars.
Anastasia Berg is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and an editor of the magazine The Point, where Rachel Wiseman is the managing editor. They are the authors of the forthcoming book “What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice.”
In Secret Recordings, Alito Endorses Nation of ‘Godliness.’ Roberts Talks of Pluralism.
The two justices were surreptitiously recorded at a Supreme Court gala last week by a woman posing as a Catholic conservative.
Abbie VanSickle, Reporting from Washington – June 10, 2024
“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said in a recording when talking about differences between the left and the right in the United States. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness.
“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
Ms. Windsor pressed Justice Alito further. “I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument,” she told him, according to the edited recordings of Justice Alito and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which were posted and distributed widely on social media on Monday. “Like, people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.”
“I agree with you, I agree with you,” he responded.
The justice’s comments appeared to be in marked contrast to those of Chief Justice Roberts, who was also secretly recorded at the same event but who pushed back against Ms. Windsor’s assertion that the court had an obligation to lead the country on a more “moral path.”
“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” the chief justice said. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”
Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion, saying, “I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path.”
Chief Justice Roberts quickly answered, “I don’t know if that’s true.”
He added: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”
The chief justice also said he did not think polarization in the country was irreparable, pointing out that the United States had managed crises as severe as the Civil War and the Vietnam War.
Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in a recording, pushed back against the notion that the United States is a “Christian nation.”Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
When Ms. Windsor pressed him on whether he thought that there was “a role for the court” in “guiding us toward a more moral path,” the chief justice’s answer was immediate.
“No, I think the role for the court is deciding the cases,” he said.
The justices were secretly recorded at an annual black-tie event for the Supreme Court Historical Society, a charity aimed at preserving the court’s history and educating the public about the role of the court. The gala was open only to members, not journalists, and tickets cost $500.
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but the charity released a statement on Monday that its “policy is to ensure that all attendees, including the justices, are treated with respect.”
The charity added: “We condemn the surreptitious recording of justices at the event, which is inconsistent with the entire spirit of the evening.”
Ms. Windsor describes herself as a documentary filmmaker and “advocacy journalist.” She has a reputation for approaching conservatives, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.
She said in an interview on Monday that she felt she had no other way to report on the candid thoughts of the justices.
“We have a court that has refused to submit to any accountability whatsoever — they are shrouded in secrecy,” Ms. Windsor said. “I don’t know how, other than going undercover, I would have been able to get answers to these questions.”
Ms. Windsor would not say how she recorded the encounters, other than that she did not tell the justices she was a journalist or that they were being recorded. She said she felt she needed to record the justices secretly to ensure that her account would be believed.
“I wanted to get them on the record,” she said. “So recording them was the only way to have proof of that encounter. Otherwise, it’s just my word against theirs.”
Some journalism ethics experts questioned her tactics.
Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said that the episode called to mind the tactics used by Project Veritas, a conservative group well known for using covert recordings to embarrass its political opponents.
“I think it’s fair to say that most ethical journalists deplore those kind of techniques,” Ms. Kirtley said. “How do you expect your readers or your viewers to trust you if you’re getting your story through deception?”
Bob Steele, a retired ethics scholar at the Poynter Institute, has written ethics guidelines for journalists on when it is appropriate to use secret recordings or to conceal their identities as reporters.
“I don’t believe that in this particular case the level of misrepresentation of her identity and the surreptitious audio recording is justifiable,” Mr. Steele said.
The secret recording is the latest controversy around the Supreme Court and its justices, particularly Justice Alito, who has faced recent revelations that provocative flags flew outside two of his homes. The flags raised concerns about an appearance of bias in cases currently pending before the court tied to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
In the weeks following the attack, an upside-down American flag, a symbol used by Trump supporters who contested the 2020 election results, flew outside the Alitos’ suburban Virginia home. Last summer, a flag carried by Capitol rioters, known as an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, was flown at their New Jersey vacation home.
Justice Alito has declined to recuse himself from any of the Jan. 6-related cases and has said that it was his wife who flew the flags.
This is also not the first time the historical society has been in the spotlight. The group, which has raised millions of dollars in recent decades, made news after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade when a former anti-abortion leader came forward to say that he had used the historical society to encourage wealthy donors, whom he called “stealth missionaries,” to give money and mingle with the justices.
Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting.
South Korea to resume loudspeaker broadcasts over border in balloon row
Shaimaa Khalil and Thomas Mackintosh – June 9, 2024
The move comes as North Korea continues to send balloons carrying rubbish across the border into South Korea [Reuters]
South Korea has said it will resume propaganda broadcasts against North Korea for the first time in six years in response to Pyongyang’s campaign of sending rubbish-filled balloons across the border.
Over 300 North Korean balloons were detected over Saturday and Sunday with around 80 landing in the South carrying scrap paper and plastic sheets.
North Korea is yet to respond to the announcement, but Pyongyang considers the loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts an act of war and has threatened to blow them up in the past.
South Korean officials warn the public not to touch the balloons, but to report them [Reuters]
Over the weekend North Korea resumed its waste campaign against its neighbour by sending balloons carrying sacks of rubbish over the border into South Korea.
It was in retaliation for activists in the South sending 10 balloons containing leaflets critical of the North Korean regime on Friday, according to AFP news agency.
South Korea’s military said there are no more balloons in the air adding that no hazardous materials have been found.
It has warned the public not to touch the balloons and to be aware of falling objects.
The public should report any sightings to the nearest police or military unit, the military added.
Following the latest batch of balloons, South Korea’s National Security Council said loudspeaker broadcasts on the border would resume on Sunday after agreeing to restart the loudspeakers for the first time since 2018.
On Thursday an activist group in South Korea said it had flown balloons into North Korea carrying leaflets criticising the leader Kim Jong Un, dollar bills and USB sticks with K-pop music videos – which is banned in the North.
In recent years, the broadcasts have included news from both Koreas and abroad as well as information on democracy and life in South Korea.
The South Korean military claims the broadcasts can be heard as much as 10km (6.2 miles) across the border in the day and up to 24km (15 miles) at night.
In May, a South Korea-based activist group claimed it had sent 20 balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets and USB sticks containing Korean pop music and music videos across the border.
Alex Jones’ lies about the Sandy Hook shooting may have finally caught up with him
Clarissa-Jan Lim – June 8, 2024
Tyler Sizemore
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has agreed to sell his assets to help pay the massive debt he owes to families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, whom he has spent years spreading lies about and defaming.
Jones’ decision to liquidate his assets this week ends his pursuit of Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of an effort to avoid paying the $1.5 billion he owes the families after they successfully sued him for defamation in Texas and Connecticut. The move also could see him lose ownership of Infowars, the far-right platform from which he’s peddled lies that the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a “hoax” perpetrated to strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights. Proceeds from the sale of his assets would go to his creditors and the families.
“Alex Jones has hurt so many people,” Christopher Mattei, who represents the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement. “The Connecticut families have fought for years to hold him responsible no matter the cost and at great personal peril. Their steadfast focus on meaningful accountability, and not just money, is what has now brought him to the brink of justice in the way that matters most.”
Jones’ Chapter 7 liquidation will not cover the debt that he owes the shooting victims’ families, but it is an outcome they have been seeking. Last year, Jones offered the families a $55 million settlement, a fraction of the $1.5 billion he owes them. The families filed a counterproposal that sought to liquidate nearly all his assets, including Free Speech Systems, the company that owns Infowars. A judge is set to rule on June 14 as to whether Free Speech Systems will be liquidated.
The far-right radio show host spent part of his Friday broadcast railing against the latest development in his financial troubles, NBC News reported. He also lamented Infowars’ potential impending doom, though he suggested he may “relaunch” a similar platform.
