Ron DeSantis Promises Extrajudicial Killings at the Border

Ron DeSantis has a new strategy for tackling the immigration crisis: killing alleged cartel members on sight.

The Florida governor laid out the policy during a Wednesday night interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity.

“We’re using lethal force against the cartels. If they’re bringing fentanyl in, breaking into our country, we’re going to leave them stone cold dead at the border,” DeSantis said, prompting cheers from the audience. “Trust me, they will get the message.”

DeSantis has used the phrase “stone cold dead” before when discussing the border. The DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down has even made the phrase the focus of a campaign ad.

It’s not clear how DeSantis plans to identify these supposed cartel members before executing them. He tried to clarify the plan a bit during a Tuesday night interview with CBS, saying, “There’s not going to be authorization to just shoot somebody like that, but when somebody’s got a backpack on and they’re breaking through the wall, you know, that’s hostile intent and you have every right to take action under those circumstances.”

He said that only people who “appeared” to be members of drug cartels would be targets of deadly force. But he offered no details on what makes someone “appear” to be a cartel member.

Republicans argue that the influx of migrants at the southern U.S. border is primarily members of cartels sneaking dangerous drugs into the country. But immigration authorities say that nearly all drugs smuggled into the United States are brought in by people who can legally cross the border, NPR reported in August. More than half of the drug mules are U.S. citizens. Almost none are migrants seeking asylum.

Critics have also pointed out that DeSantis’s plan is a violation of the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, which prohibits government officials from committing extrajudicial killings. DeSantis should know this, having served as a military lawyer. But considering the allegations made about him during his time working at Guantánamo Bay, maybe he doesn’t care.

Mitt Romney revealed that “almost without exception” Republicans feel exactly the same way he does about Donald Trump. In fact, they’ve even laughed at him behind his back.

In a new biography of the Utah senator by McKay Coppins, an excerpt of which was published in The Atlantic, Romney revealed that his biggest surprise when he was elected to the Senate was that many of his Republican colleagues shared his view of the former president.

Romney recalled one senior senator who said, “[Trump] has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”

While publicly they presented as loyal party members, behind closed doors, Senate members would ridicule Trump for his stupidity.

Romney recalled that Trump stopped by a weekly Senate luncheon in March 2019. This was just two days after special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe ended without proving that Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Trump’s arrival was met with a standing ovation from the senators, but after Trump made his rambling remarks and departed the room, the Republican caucus burst out laughing.

Besides viewing Trump as a laughingstock, according to Romney, some Republicans privately agree on another major thing: that Trump was guilty.

In his biography, Romney recalls a January 2020 conversation he had with then–Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, during a break in the Senate impeachment proceedings against Trump.

“They nailed him,” McConnell said to Romney as he passed.

Caught off-guard, Romney tried to be diplomatic and responded along party lines. “Well, the defense will say that Trump was just investigating corruption by the Bidens,” he told McConnell.

“If you believe that,” McConnell replied, “I’ve got a bridge I can sell you.” The biography clarified that McConnell did not remember this conversation and denied that this was his thinking at the time.

Romney attributed some of the two-faced behavior of his colleagues to their fear of violent retribution from their voter base. Coppins wrote that “after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged.”

According to Romney, one senator wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment but feared for his family’s safety if he did.

Romney was the only member of his party to vote to convict Trump in the 2020 impeachment trial.

How does the Utah senator account for the rest of his party’s behavior? “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution,” Romney said.

Republicans insist that Joe and Hunter Biden are stonewalling the investigation into their supposed crimes. But the GOP actually passed up on a chance to discuss Hunter’s financial records.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer has spearheaded the investigation into the Bidens, alleging for months with zero proof that the president and his son are guilty of corruption. During a Tuesday interview with Newsmax, Comer said that he had requested Hunter Biden’s bank records but never got a response. The Kentucky Republican said he anticipated a court battle to access the documents.

But as it turns out, that is not strictly true. The Oversight Committee requested more than a decade’s worth of Hunter Biden’s bank records on February 8. And the very next day, Hunter Biden’s legal team responded.

“On February 9, we wrote back to you and, while pointing out the concerns about the motive and improper basis for your requests, I specifically said, ‘I would offer to sit with you and your staff, including the ranking member and his staff, to see whether Mr. Biden has information that may inform some legitimate legislative purpose and be helpful to the Committee,’” Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said Tuesday in a letter, which was shared with The New Republic.

“You never responded to that offer.”

The February letter, which was also shared with TNR, didn’t promise to hand over years of Hunter Biden’s financial records, as Republicans requested, but it did offer a chance to meet directly with his legal team.

The letter also argues that the Oversight Committee is overreaching in its investigation of Hunter Biden because he is a private citizen. Lowell points out that congressional investigations are supposed to be directly related to legislative duties.

“Whether you think Mr. Biden acted properly or not, and whether you think his private business dealings and associations are inappropriate or not, his behavior is that of a private citizen, not a public official,” Lowell wrote in February. “That his father was a Senator, Vice President, or now President is not an endorsement of your choice to make every aspect of Mr. Biden’s personal life your political weapon.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into the president on Tuesday, citing his alleged involvement in his son’s business dealings. Republicans know—and have even admitted—they have no evidence of Biden committing crimes, but they are content to use his relationship with his son to try to discredit him.

It’s no wonder dating is so hard right now: A new survey shows that women have far more normal red flags than men.

The survey, which was conducted by Change Research, found that women and transgender and nonbinary people lean far more liberal than men do. This political divide results in many more ways that potential dates can give women the ick.

Change Research polled 1,033 people aged 18–34 in the last week of August and found that 64 percent of women are politically left of center, as are 86 percent of trans and nonbinary people. In comparison, just 39 percent of men identify as liberal or progressive.

These divisions in political beliefs naturally affect how people choose to spend their free time. It also affects how they view potential partners. For 76 percent of women, it’s a huge red flag if a date identifies as a MAGA Republican. It’s also a red flag for more than half of women if someone identifies as conservative.

Other major red flags for women include listening to Joe Rogan, refusing to see the Barbie movie, saying “All Lives Matter,” and believing that there are only two genders.

In comparison, a quarter of men say listening to Joe Rogan is a green flag. Nearly a third of men say that saying “All Lives Matter” is a green flag, and 46 percent of men say that believing there are only two genders is also preferable.

It would be easy to brush these statistics off as women having too many standards. But maybe a better way to look at the data is that women really want to date people who care about their rights and well-being.

Mitt Romney announced Wednesday that he will not seek a second term in the Senate and will leave office in January 2025.

The Utah senator cited his age as a primary factor in his decision to resign. If he served a second term, he would be in his eighties by the time it ended.

“Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders,” he said in a video posted to Twitter. “They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”

Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, was the only member of his party to vote twice to convict Donald Trump during the former president’s impeachment trials.

But his legacy will be marked by a history of remarkable flip-flopping. He was a vehement Trump critic, speaking out against Trump in 2016. Romney swore he would never accept a Trump endorsement—only to accept one during his Senate campaign in 2018.

He also gave a powerful speech on the Senate floor about the importance of the truth in the wake of the January 6 attack. But Romney also gladly backed the ultraconservative policies that Trump pushed while in office.

Romney had promised in 2012 to repeal Obamacare, only to take credit for it three years later. He tried to get rid of Obamacare again in 2019, despite Senate leadership saying they were uninterested in reopening that can of worms.

Romney supported the Republican-controlled Senate’s decision to block Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016, saying it was “consistent with history” to wait until after a presidential election. But after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, Romney helped the Senate rush through the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett.

It’s commendable that Romney is stepping down and making room for younger generations, especially as questions swirl about whether Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein are still fit for office. But it’s a shame that he wasn’t consistent with his morals.

This story has been updated.

Kevin McCarthy was called out Wednesday for not having the votes to launch an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, and he did not respond well.

The House speaker launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Tuesday, after months of the GOP insisting that the president is guilty of corruption and influence peddling overseas. Republicans have yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims.

McCarthy ordered House Republicans to proceed with the inquiry, despite promising less than two weeks ago that he would not open the probe without a vote. When CNN’s Manu Raju asked him about that, McCarthy lashed out.

“You told Breitbart 12 days ago that you had the votes, so what changed?” Raju asked.

“You know what’s interesting to me?” McCarthy snapped back. “I just laid out to you a lot of allegations … so you don’t care about any of the answers.”

McCarthy accused Raju of not caring about whether Biden or his son, Hunter, had committed crimes. Typically, an impeachment inquiry would occur because there was already proof of crimes committed, not as a way to try and find that evidence.

The California Republican also attacked Nancy Pelosi for impeaching Donald Trump the first time without first holding a vote. McCarthy had similarly criticized Pelosi for doing so in 2019, so you would think that he would want to avoid copying her.

Another major difference is that a month after Pelosi opened the impeachment inquiry into Trump, the House voted to formalize the impeachment. It was unlikely the House would have backed McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry, though, as multiple Republicans said they were not on board with his plan.

Donald Trump privately met with Marjorie Taylor Greene to discuss what a “painful” impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden would look like.

These talks happened just ahead of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement Tuesday of a formal impeachment inquiry of the president.

Trump and Greene caught up on their plan for getting Biden impeached over dinner at his private Bedminster, New Jersey, club on Sunday.

“I did brief him on the strategy that I want to see laid out with impeachment,” Greene told The New York Times. Greene added that she told Trump she wants the impeachment inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden.”

Greene is one of several Republican lawmakers that Trump has been privately meeting with to discuss Biden’s impeachment.

Trump has also spoken with Representative Elise Stefanik on a weekly basis as well as conservative House Freedom Caucus members pushing for impeachment.

House Republicans argue that as vice president, Biden made decisions to benefit and profit from his son’s business dealings. But despite months-long investigations, they have yet to provide any actual evidence of Biden’s supposed crimes.

“Biden is a Stone Cold Crook—You don’t need a long INQUIRY to prove it, it’s already proven.” Trump wrote on Truth Social in August. “Either IMPEACH the BUM, or fade into OBLIVION. THEY DID IT TO US!”

Trump himself was impeached twice during his presidency and has been criminally charged four times this year.

Republicans could have avoided opening an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden simply by subpoenaing his son. But they have no good answer for why they didn’t take that option instead.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden on Tuesday, after months of the GOP insisting that the president and his son Hunter Biden are guilty of corruption and influence peddling overseas. Republicans have yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims.

And throughout all of the hearings and interviews, Republicans have not once subpoenaed Hunter Biden for testimony. When asked Wednesday why that was the case, House Oversight Chair James Comer, who has led the charge against the Bidens, couldn’t answer.

During an interview with Newsmax, Comer said that Hunter Biden is “more than welcome” to testify on Capitol Hill. “He’s invited today. We will drop everything,” the Kentucky Republican said.

When host Rob Finnerty pointed out that Hunter Biden was unlikely to voluntarily appear before Congress, Comer haltingly replied, “Well, he can fight the subpoena in court. It’s very difficult … if it were easy to get a president or their son in front of a House committee, then the January 6 committee probably would have done that with Donald Trump.”

Comer’s right that the House investigative committee on January 6 struggled to get Trump to appear. But that may be due to the fact that Trump swore in 2019 that he would fight “all the subpoenas” for investigations into his actions. His administration refused to provide information for more than 100 congressional investigations, and Trump even sued his own accounting firm to try to block it from giving his tax records to Congress.

In comparison, nearly 70 Biden administration officials have provided testimony, either in hearings or transcribed interviews. Oversight Committee members have been briefed by high-level FBI and Secret Service officials, and they have received thousands of documents from the Treasury and the FBI.

But rather than subpoena Hunter Biden, Republicans moved right to an impeachment inquiry. Despite Comer’s hedging, the GOP has already admitted why. Republicans know they don’t have enough evidence to actually impeach and convict Biden. They just want to make him look bad enough that he loses the 2024 election.

Representative Lauren Boebert was escorted out of a theater in Denver on Sunday for “causing a disturbance” during the performance—and now we have the video footage.

Employees at the Buell Theatre asked two patrons to leave the evening performance of Beetlejuice after their behavior sparked three complaints from other attendees. An incident report says the pair were vaping, singing along, recording the show, and generally disrupting the performance, The Denver Post reported Tuesday.

While the venue’s report did not name Boebert or identify the person she was with, her campaign office confirmed she was escorted from the show. Security footage from inside the Buell shows venue security officials asking Boebert and a man to leave the show and then escorting them out of the theater.

It is not clear who the man with Boebert is. She filed for divorce from her husband earlier this year.

In the video, Boebert is seen initially refusing to leave her seat. One of the ushers had to threaten to call city police before the pair agreed to leave, according to the venue’s incident report.

Police were called and stayed in the theater lobby until Boebert and her companion had left. While they were being escorted out, the pair told employees “stuff like ‘do you know who I am,’ ‘I am on the board’ [and] ‘I will be contacting the mayor,’” the report said. The video also shows Boebert giving the finger to security as she is being escorted out.

Boebert’s campaign manager confirmed that the representative had been asked to leave the show, but he denied that she had been vaping. He also confirmed that Boebert had used her phone to take a photo of the performance but said she didn’t know that wasn’t allowed. Typically, theaters announce before shows begin that photos and video of any kind are prohibited.

Elon Musk had wanted to recruit Rudy Giuliani in the early 2000s to help turn PayPal into a bank, but the outgoing New York mayor was too skeezy even for Musk, according to a new biography of the Tesla founder.

Musk co-founded PayPal in 2000. He originally wanted to name the company X and dreamed it would disrupt the finance sector (sound familiar?). Walter Isaacson’s new biography, Elon Musk, which was released Tuesday, reports that Musk and investor Michael Moritz flew to New York soon after to see if they could recruit Giuliani to act as their political fixer and banking policy adviser.

When Musk and Moritz met with Giuliani, “it was like walking into a mob scene,” Moritz says in Isaacson’s biography. Giuliani “was surrounded by goonish confidantes. He didn’t have any idea whatsoever about Silicon Valley, but he and his henchmen were eager to line their pockets.”

“They asked for 10% of the company, and that was the end of the meeting. ‘This guy occupies a different planet,’ Musk told Moritz.”

Giuliani went on to become known as “America’s mayor” after shepherding New York City through the wake of the 9/11 attacks. He then unsuccessfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and eventually became Donald Trump’s personal attorney. While he initially amassed millions as a lawyer, consultant, and public speaker, his finances have been struggling of late.

Trump has refused to pay Giuliani’s legal fees, forcing Giuliani to fly to Mar-a-Lago and beg for Trump to pay up. Giuliani is also struggling to pay his own legal bills as he battles an indictment in Georgia for trying to overturn the 2020 election results.