[RedState] Earlier on Thursday, we wrote about St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner seeking a motion to dismiss the attempt to remove her from office. The process began on February 23 when the Missouri Attorney General’s office filed the quo warranto—which as my colleague Susie Moore explained, stemmed from "serious allegations of malfeasance on the part of her office"—after a request that Gardner resign immediately.
Then in late April, a St. Louis judge lowered the boom on Gardner, writing that her office was a "rudderless ship of chaos":
Describing Gardner’s office as "a rudderless ship of chaos," [St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Noble] held that there was sufficient evidence to find that Gardner and Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Desilets had acted with "intentional disregard for the judicial process" and announced that he would be appointing a special prosecutor to pursue a case of "indirect criminal contempt" against them both.
Garner’s filing failed on Thursday, however. But now, she has resigned.
Fox2now St. Louis:
ST. LOUIS — After months of calls, requests, and demands for her to resign, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner is stepping down. Her resignation is effective June 1.
Gardner, the city’s first African American chief prosecutor, tweeted her resignation letter to city residents at 3:44 p.m. In the letter, she drew a connection to her presence in power and the Missouri Legislature’s efforts to take over both the circuit attorney’s office and turn control of the city’s police force back over to the state. [...]
There’s no word if the contempt hearings will be dropped, or how the attorney general will react to Gardner’s resignation. It’s also unclear what will happen to a bill being pushed in the Missouri Legislature that would give Governor Mike Parson the power to appoint a special prosecutor in jurisdictions where the homicide rate exceeds a set milestone.
The embattled Gardner had many other ethical issues, the report said:
She was fined more than $63,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission in December 2018 for using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses during her time as a Missouri representative, and agreed to pay about 10% of that amount. Gardner blamed holy manal errors for the mistakes.
In May 2022, a three-person disciplinary panel ruled Gardner violated ethics rules and recommended the Missouri Supreme Court reprimand the circuit attorney after she failed to share evidence with Eric Greitens’ attorneys during her 2018 investigation against the former governor. The state’s highest court formally reprimanded Gardner in August 2022.
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner announced Thursday that, after weeks of blistering pressure from Missouri lawmakers, she would indeed resign.
In a letter addressed to Gov. Mike Parson, Gardner made no mention of the turmoil in her office nor the extensive staff departures in recent weeks. Instead, she said she was stepping down, effective June 1, to prevent the state Legislature from passing a bill that would strip her of most of her power and “permanently remove the right of every St. Louis voter to elect their Circuit Attorney.”
News of her departure sent shockwaves through the halls of the two downtown courthouses where victims, defense attorneys, judges and even Gardner’s own staffers had complained for months about critical office departures and widespread dysfunction. It also reverberated through the Capitol in Jefferson City where lawmakers had been debating a bill to strip her of power.
Officials across the region on Thursday welcomed Gardner’s departure. But many shared deep concerns about who would handle upcoming hearings, communicate with victims, and pick up the pieces of an office that now has roughly a third of the attorneys as when Gardner was elected.
Gov. Mike Parson will appoint Gardner’s replacement.
He’s a Republican, so this should br interesting for all involved.
He said in a statement he would immediately start the replacement process.
#5
Problem is, who will replace her? (Look at the new mayor of Chicago, for example.) Glad she's gone, but if Gardner is replaced by another nut job, the net effect is nil. I guess time will tell.
#7
#5 DDM - reread that last paragraph. Only problem will be in rehiring staff that left or filling vacant positions from new hires (vetting is in order)...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/05/2023 8:24 Comments ||
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#8
Shouldn't let her off that easily. If she's guilty of malfeasance in office, she should still be prosecuted and jailed pour encourager les autres.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 12:20 Comments ||
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[FoxNews] The massive sum could be distributed in payments over a lifetime, although that hasn't been finalized
Economists advising California’s task force for reparations have estimated that it will cost $1.2 million per Black resident, paid over a lifetime.
California is one of multiple states debating the feasibility of economic reparations for Black Americans whose ancestors were victimized by the Atlantic slave trade and its legacy, despite the fact California was designated as a free state when it joined the Union. The push for reparations gained major momentum in 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, but it remains an economically and culturally controversial topic.
California, which frequently makes national headlines for experimental progressive policies, has recently reached an economic estimate.
"Economists advising California’s task force on reparations have, at long last, released an estimate of the damages caused by the state’s history of slavery and its many vestiges of white supremacy: up to $1.2 million per Black resident over a lifetime," the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday
California's reparations task force is preparing to recommend that the Golden State apologize and issue "down payments" to Black residents as a way to make amends for slavery and discrimination, although the state explicitly outlawed slavery when it joined the Union in 1850.
The task force, created by state legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, on Monday published more than 500 pages of documents that indicate it plans to recommend California issue a formal apology for slavery and racism and consider payments of varying amounts to eligible Black Californians.
The Chronicle suggested this massive number was merely a "rough, partial estimate of what it would cost the state to compensate Black people for that legacy of harm, according to a draft of the task force’s final report."
The paper quoted the report directly.
"Rather, it is an economically conservative initial assessment of what losses, at a minimum, the State of California caused or could have prevented, but did not," the report stated. "(T)he Legislature would then have to decide how to translate loss-estimates into proposed reparations amounts."
The Chronicle added further that the process is still ongoing.
"The panel is preparing its final report to send to the Legislature, which will include a recommendation on the amount and form of cash payments," the outlet wrote. "Task force members are expected to vote Saturday at Mills College in Oakland on whether to adopt the draft report, the capstone of its work after two years of tense meetings and in-depth research."
The Chronicle observed that next task at hand would be figuring out the massive economic implications of this reparations program.
’Whatever the task force decides, the Legislature and Newsom will have the final say. If reparations are approved, state officials would have to figure out how to pay for the program," the outlet wrote. "An economist for the reparations panel has said the plan could cost California more than $800 billion; the state has a roughly $297 billion annual budget."
Despite being nearly three times the state’s overall budget, a member of the task force in April dismissed concerns about the total cost, saying it was as the "least important piece" of their proposal.
"It's important," she said, "but it's the least important in terms of being able to get to a point in our country's history and in California's history where we recognize that the harm cuts across multiple areas and domains and that the repair needs to align with that."
The Chronicle noted that one key aspect is that the program does not distribute reparations merely for slavery, but for other economic and cultural issues seen as the legacy of slavery itself such as "mass incarceration and over-policing in Black communities," "discrimination in housing," and "health harms, including unequal access to health care, greater exposure to environmental pollution and discrimination from medical workers."
In April, Detroit's reparations task force met. Kofi Kenyatta, a senior policy director of UpTogether told the task force: "Reparations can mean a lot of things but it must include, no strings attached, direct cash to Black people and systemic change throughout all levels."
Jill may presume she is the actual President of the United States since she is the White House Assisted Living Manager, but in what alternative universe is claiming that she can be the senior representative of an American delegation to the culturally important coronation event in the ongoing story of our closest ally, when she is officially nothing more than a private citizen, and unemployed political spouse.
Absent a crisis, the supposed President needs to go, and its insulting and revealing that he can't be trusted to interact off-script with those attending, or for that matter, be away from a toilet or a pudding cup for more than an hour.
So much for the leader of the free world, and God forbid them sending the Vice President, whose digestive tract may function normally, but not much else seems to!
You get a 2024 Democrat Party primary candidate with some name recognition and energy and Biden will go back to Delaware where he belongs. Not saying I like RFK Jr., just saying Biden's time in office might be nearing an end. I'd still root for RFK Jr.'s Republican general election opponent 1) because he's a Democrat and 2) because he's a Kennedy and I have an intense dislike for American political dynasties...not to mention Kennedys.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 12:33 Comments ||
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#19
But then, Ivanka might be OK.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 12:34 Comments ||
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#20
"When we put aside our differences, we see we're kind of the same. When we put aside our differences, we see we're kind of the same. Let's be friends. I know we can do great things together."
#21
If anyone can be said to be the example for keeping your intelligence under control, it's Kammie.
Hers has been mired down since about 1990 or so.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/05/2023 14:16 Comments ||
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#22
First lady Jill Biden heads to the UK for King Charles II coronation, President Biden not in attendance
The exact kind of ceremony — where business need not be conducted — for which first ladies and vice presidents exist. Also British royals, who nowadays really have no other purpose than to be seen, speaking platitudes. Normally, of course, the president stays home and gets on with the work at hand, but this one has naps to take instead.
[Fox] CDC announces Director Rochelle Walensky will step down at the end of June, following a two-year tenure at the agency
"The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency marks a tremendous transition for our country, for public health, and in my tenure as CDC Director," Walensky wrote in her resignation letter to President Biden. "I took on this role, at your request, with the goal of leaving behind the dark days of the pandemic and moving CDC — and public health — forward into a much better and more trusted place."
[NYPOST] A whistleblower tip about a document allegedly putting President Biden at the center of a bribery scheme triggered a guessing game across Washington Wednesday — as journalists and politicians pored over Biden’s extensive history of interactions with his family’s overseas business associates.
Biden, 80, regularly met with his son Hunter and brother James’ international connections during and after his eight-year vice presidency, including citizens of China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... the tip pertains to alleged wrongdoing by President Biden, a source said, meaning that it may not necessarily involve figures linked to his relatives.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) revealed the whistleblower information Wednesday, saying the tip involves "an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions."
"If it’s as explosive as what we heard, we expect it to be very difficult to get it," Grassley told Fox News Wednesday afternoon, "but we know it’s unclassified now, and the American people deserve transparency from the FBI, and that’s what this is all about."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/05/2023 00:00 ||
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#4
...citizens of China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine...
All the usual suspects. Explains the war in Ukraine as well as covid and the unrestricted flow of fentanyl. Joe's big problem before he leaves office is how to launder all the money.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 12:39 Comments ||
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[BREITBART] Two former top intelligence officials will testify this month before the House Judiciary Committee’s weaponization of the federal government panel about the statement they signed in 2020 discrediting the bombshell story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. I'm sure they'll both be truthful and forthcoming...
Former CIA Director John Brennan ...director of the CIA under the Obama administration. One of the deeper dwelling denizens of the Deep State, probably the guy who lit the match that launched the Russiagate coup attempt... and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will appear before the panel in behind-closed-door interviews on May 11 and May 17, respectively, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to Breitbart News.
Brennan and Clapper were two of the most well-known signatories on the infamous statement that 51 former intelligence officials issued in October 2020, weeks ahead of the last presidential election. The statement cast doubt on a New York Post story about then-candidate Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family... and his son Hunter.
The Post’s story, written by now-Breitbart News Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris, revealed damning information about the Biden family’s business dealings based on information found on an abandoned laptop of Hunter’s that the Post had obtained.
The story had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," Brennan, Clapper, and 49 others wrote at the time, while acknowledging they had no evidence to support the false notion.
Revelations of the pair’s forthcoming testimonies come after another signatory of the statement, former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell, testified last month to the panel that now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken had prompted Morell and others to author the statement.
Blinken at the time was serving as a paid senior adviser to the Biden presidential campaign, and Biden later relied on the misleading statement in a presidential debate as a way to dismiss the Post’s story.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/05/2023 6:22 Comments ||
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#3
Gotta hand it to the Deep State: when they had the old fart belch out about crushing the Proud Boys during the debates, it was not an idle threat. Promises made and promises kept. Antifa and BLM now have free reign to do as they please with no organized opposition to worry about. It's gonna be a fun 18 months.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/05/2023 9:25 Comments ||
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#4
The great thing about conspiracy is that you don't have to actively do anything to be part of the conspiracy. A nod and a wink is good enough.
Next step: conspiracy charges against the Orange Man himself for encouraging these rascals.
[AMGREATNESS] One of the more frustrating consequences of the radical Left’s takeover of America’s big cities has been that the elected saboteurs are rarely, if ever, forced to answer for their destructive acts. Who will hold a deranged mayor accountable when the City Council, district attorney, and others all practice the same groupthink?
On that count, America owes Texas Governor Greg Abbott ... governor of Texas. Abbott is a Republican. His 2014 Dem opponent, state senatrix Wendy Davis, thought the absolute, most pressing, most important issue facing the state was abortion. Abbott beat the pantyhose off her. His 2018 opponent, Lupe Valdez didn't dwell too heavily on abortion, but she lost too... a debt of gratitude.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
05/05/2023 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] Sen. Ted Cruz; ...US Senator from Texas. Republican contender for president in 2016, his stiff and abrasive manner earned him the title most hated man in the Senate. After a close win over Beto O'Rourke, who tried to out-Lastino him, he grew a beard and let his biting wit shine through. Cruz's comments have been known to leave life-threatening wounds at better than forty feet... (R-Texas) said Wednesday that President Biden has doomed negotiations with House Republicans over the debt ceiling because of his impaired mental state.
Cruz told news hounds the 80-year-old president’s approach to the crisis is a far cry from his performance during similar debt limit talks involving the Obama White House in 2011 — and suggested cognitive decline was to blame.
"Vice President Biden sat down with House Republicans and reached a meaningful compromise," the 52-year-old senator said.
"President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences... needs to do the same thing."
"Sadly, the reason he hasn’t so far, I believe, is because his mental faculties are too diminished right now to do what he did in 2011, to sit down and actually work together on a solution to the problem," Cruz went on.
"What we’re left with is a bunch of young staffers in the White House — radical children — who are perfectly willing to risk a default on the debt because they have no appreciation of the chaos, and misery and damage a default would do.
"We should not default on our debt, but the present path we’re on is unsustainable," Cruz concluded.
"And Joe Biden needs to come to the table."
On Monday, the president invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy ...the GOP house majority whip. He replaces Eric Cantor, who got whupped because his politix are like Kevin McCarthy's... (R-Calif.) to the White House to discuss raising the nation’s borrowing limit — the same day that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the US could default on its debt as soon as June 1.
The president has also included Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ...Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras and microphones. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower, which is 47.40809 years. Senate minority leader as of 2017... (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in the discussion, which is set to take place on May 9.
House Republicans last week narrowly passed a proposal to raise the US debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024, whichever is reached first — but Schumer declared it "dead on arrival" in the Senate.
The bill, known as the Limit, Save, Grow Act, would also cap the growth of federal expenditures to 1% per year for the next decade to shrink non-defense discretionary spending.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/05/2023 00:00 ||
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#1
"We should not default on our debt, but the present path we’re on is unsustainable," Cruz concluded.
"And Joe Biden needs to come to the table."
Make sure he wears a bib.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 12:59 Comments ||
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[NYPOST] Twitter CEO Elon Musk lamented that the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... ’s downtown feels "post-apocalyptic" now that businesses have fled because of rampant crime.
Early Thursday morning, Musk replied to a Twitter thread discussing Nordstrom’s closure of two stores in San Francisco at the Westfield Mall.
The mall’s owner, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, said in a statement major stores like Nordstrom, Whole Foods and Walgreens have fled the downtown area because of "unsafe conditions" caused by "lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity."
"So many stores shuttered in downtown SF. Feels post-apocalyptic," Musk tweeted.
Musk has been outspoken about crime in San Francisco, where Twitter’s headquarters is located.
After the shocking murder of tech executive Bob Lee, who was fatally stabbed in what was supposed to be a safe and upscale neighborhood, the billionaire said San Francisco’s "violent mostly peaceful crime" problem "is horrific."
Statistics show that San Francisco ranks below other major U.S. cities for homicides, with about 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/05/2023 00:00 ||
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#3
We are entering Chicago's notorious murder season
Yes. What the rest of us call summer will be cast as "gerbil worming pushes up murder rate" by the media.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/05/2023 11:26 Comments ||
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#4
Decades ago I remember my Mom and Grandma shopping in downtown SF and dragging me with them. It was quite the event--with them dressing up, even putting on gloves, to go downtown.
Well, good-bye to all that.
Posted by: Tom ||
05/05/2023 11:35 Comments ||
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[NYPOST] While Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...... and Ron DeSantis are busy tearing chunks out of each other, there is an unlikely sleeper candidate in the Republican race who is quietly winning hearts and awakening hope across the country with his sunny version of America First.
Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, the woke-busting entrepreneur, son of Indian immigrants colonists from Ohio and the GOP’s first millennial presidential candidate, is rising steadily in opinion polls, just 10 weeks after announcing his candidacy on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.
In one CBS poll this week, he managed to tie with former VP Mike Pence in third place among likely Republican voters, ahead of establishment figures such as Nikki Haley ...Trump administration's former ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems... , Chris Christie, Tim Scott and Asa Hutchinson.
He’s pitching himself as a more energetic but less divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... version of Trump, as "the outsider that doesn’t just talk about draining the swamp," he said in New Hampshire this week. "I’m going to get the job done . . . I see an opportunity to do in 2020 what Ronald Reagan did in 1980, win a landslide election."
He preaches that it is not enough merely to point out the hypocrisies of the left’s "secular religions" of "racial wokeism, gender ideology and the climate cult."
These are just symptoms of a national identity crisis, he says, caused by turning away from the founding values of the country, from success by merit and adherence to the rule of law, values that wooed immigrants colonists like his Indian engineer father and psychiatrist mother to Ohio.
"Faith, patriotism, hard work, family, these things have disappeared," he says, and he wants to "fill that void with a vision of American national identity that dilutes this woke poison."
[Breitbart] President Joe Biden’s nominee to become ambassador to Jordan says she supports American taxpayers funding border security measures in the Middle Eastern country even as the White House has abandoned building a border wall along the United States-Mexico border.
Yael Lempert testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, telling Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) that she fully supports Biden’s funding requests that pump millions more in taxpayer dollars to fund border security initiatives in Jordan.
Specifically, Biden has requested some $110 million in taxpayer money to continue funding border security measures for Jordan. In December 2022, Congress passed Biden’s request for $410 million for “enhanced border security” efforts in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman.
#3
NWO sez everyone keeps their borders except Israel and USA.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/05/2023 11:47 Comments ||
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#4
So we get to defend the borders of every other country in the world but not our own? What happens to all these other countries when the United States of America no longer exists?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/05/2023 13:05 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Fox] CDC announces Director 
[NYPOST] A whistleblower tip about a document allegedly putting President Biden at the center of a bribery scheme triggered a guessing game across Washington Wednesday — as journalists and politicians pored over Biden’s extensive history of interactions with his family’s overseas business associates.
...46th president of the U.S. Sleazy Dem mschine politician, paterfamilias of the Biden Crime Family...
...46th president of the U.S. We get to suffer the consequences...
...Trump administration's former ambassador to the UN. First woman to serve as Governor of South Carolina, and the second Indian-American governor in the country, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. At the age of 39, Haley was the youngest governor in the U.S., a distinction formerly held by Jindal. She is a Republican, which really grates on the Dems...
