On Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 along party lines to hold Attorney General MerrickGarland in contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide the audio from President Joe Biden‘s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The interview was part of the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
Earlier on Wednesday, a vote to adopt a rule for the consideration of the contempt motion passed narrowly by 208-207 along party lines. Garland has previously stated that he would not release the audio from Biden’s interview, arguing that doing so would hinder future cooperation with the Department of Justice.
Garland has mentioned in his previous testimony before the House that his department has gone to “extraordinary lengths” to respond to the committee’s requests for information. He noted that Hur’s report and transcripts of the interview have already been provided. Hur also testified before Congress for “more than five hours,” according to Garland.
Despite these efforts, Garland has firmly maintained that the actual audio recordings from which the transcripts were created will not be made available.
“Releasing the audio would chill cooperation with the department in future investigations and it could influence witnesses’ answers if they thought the audio of their law enforcement interviews would be broadcast to Congress and the public,” Garland explained.
Garland, in the meantime, has utilized the resources of his own Department of Justice to plead his innocence, with an internal memo sent to media publications stating:
“For nearly seven decades and across presidential administrations of both parties, the Executive Branch has taken the position that the criminal contempt of Congress statute… does not apply to Executive Branch officials who do not comply with a congressional subpoena based on a presidential assertion of executive privilege.”
This precedent, however, was not extended to Dr. Peter Navarro nor Stephen K. Bannon, both sentenced to jail time due to a congressional contempt charge made by the hyper-partisan January 6th committee which both fabricated information and mass deleted evidence.
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On Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 207 along party lines to hold Attorney General MerrickGarland in contempt of Congress over his refusal to provide the audio from President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The interview was part of the investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents.
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
New York Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman, who disrupted a congressional vote by pulling a Capitol Hill fire alarm, is significantly behind his opponent in the upcoming primary. Democratic opponent George Latimer appears to have a strong lead heading into the June 25 primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District.
The latest poll, conducted by Emerson College Polling in collaboration with PIX11 and The Hill, indicates that Latimer is 17 points ahead. In this poll, Latimer has the support of 48 percent of likely voters, while Bowman is on 31 percent, with 21 percent undecided.
Latimer has voiced strong support for Israel, in contrast to Bowman, who has faced criticism for previously characterizing Israel as an “apartheid” state—a statement he later retracted. Earlier this year, he attended a fundraiser co-hosted by Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), who said he was “happy to see” the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
Polling data reveals that 45 percent of voters agree with Latimer’s position on Israel, while 29 percent support Bowman’s stance. Fifty percent of Democratic primary voters believe the U.S. is overspending on aid to Israel, and 46 percent think the Joe Biden regime is not giving the Palestinians enough humanitarian relief.
The fire alarm incident has damaged Bowman’s standing. He initially claimed he had mistaken the fire alarm for a door handle but later admitted this was a lie, pleading guilty to an offense in exchange for a light punishment.
January 6 protestors have received years in prison for obstructing “official proceedings” in Congress.
Latimer leads by 42 points among white voters, while Bowman, who is black, has a 14-point lead among black voters. Hispanic voters are more evenly split.
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New York Democratic Representative Jamaal Bowman, who disrupted a congressional vote by pulling a Capitol Hill fire alarm, is significantly behind his opponent in the upcoming primary. Democratic opponent George Latimer appears to have a strong lead heading into the June 25 primary in New York's 16th Congressional District.
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A federal judge has invalidated a Florida statute that prohibited minors from receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for gender-transition purposes, provided a parent consents to the treatment. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle delivered the ruling on Tuesday, indicating that the law constituted discrimination akin to that faced by minorities and women.
Judge Hinkle’s decision spans over 100 pages, including a citation of Martin Luther King Jr. He likened the struggle for transgender rights to battles against racism and misogyny. “Some transgender opponents invoke religion to support their position, just as some once invoked religion to support their racism or misogyny,” Hinkle remarked. “Transgender opponents are, of course, free to hold their beliefs. But they are not free to discriminate against transgender individuals just for being transgender. In time, discrimination against transgender individuals will diminish, just as racism and misogyny have diminished. To paraphrase a civil-rights advocate from an earlier time, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) criticized the ruling, stating, “Through their elected representatives, the people of Florida acted to protect children in this state, and the Court was wrong to override their wishes.” He continued, “As we’ve seen here in Florida, the United Kingdom, and across Europe, there is no quality evidence to support the chemical and physical mutilation of children. These procedures do permanent, life-altering damage to children, and history will look back on this fad in horror.”
The ruling is not Judge Hinkle’s first radical decision. Nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court‘s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Hinkle overturned Florida‘s statutory and constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, declaring they violated the federal constitution. In addition, Hinkle made a key ruling in the expansion of felon voting rights in the state.
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A federal judge has invalidated a Florida statute that prohibited minors from receiving puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for gender-transition purposes, provided a parent consents to the treatment. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle delivered the ruling on Tuesday, indicating that the law constituted discrimination akin to that faced by minorities and women.
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Joe Biden acted not just as a popularity “cooler” by appearing alongside Emmanuel Macron during the D-Day anniversary in Normandy, France, but as a kind of “hex,” according to Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse.
Discussing Macron’s disastrous performance against Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally in the European Parliament elections with War Room host Stephen K. Bannon, Kassam stressed that Biden does not enjoy the undeserved “rock star” status of his former boss, Barack Obama, in Europe.
“There was definitely a different vibe when Obama used to go over there, and there was definitely a different way in which it translated to popularity,” Kassam recalled.
He explained that leaders across Europe, whether the notionally right-wing then-Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain or some of the more socialistic leaders on the Continent, were eager to be seen “cavorting with the ostensible leader of the free world.”
Biden, on the other hand, in Kassam’s estimation, does not just cool European leaders’ popularity but “puts a hex on it, quite frankly.”
“His very presence has probably done nothing net positive to any of these leaders he meets, with Macron included,” he added.
Appearing alongside Joe Biden in Normandy didn’t just have a cooling effect on Macron’s popularity ahead of the European elections, it put a hex on it, argues @RaheemKassam. pic.twitter.com/tXxwhFnvoT
Listen to Raheem Kassam discuss the European election results at length with Jack Posobiec here.
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Joe Biden acted not just as a popularity "cooler" by appearing alongside Emmanuel Macron during the D-Day anniversary in Normandy, France, but as a kind of "hex," according to Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse.
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Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has bemoaned being labeled a “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) in an interview on Fox News, where he is now a board member. Ryan, 54, called himself “an anti-establishment Republican” during an appearance with the network’s Neil Cavuto, wherein he blasted former President Trump as “unfit for office.”
During the conversation, Ryan claimed neoconservative Nikki Haley would “win this thing by 12 points” and explained that he would be writing in his candidate for president, effectively telling Fox News viewers to throw the election for Joe Biden.
Look, I got death, taxes, and weird stuff from Donald Trump. These are the three certainties in my life, so to me, it’s just another day in my life,” Ryan seethed. “Fealty to Trump is what RINO is. Meaning, if you don’t pledge fealty to this man, then you are a RINO,” he claimed.
Ryan went on to complain Trump is a “populist” and “not a conservative.”
“I would prefer a party that is based on principles, not personality or populism. This populism is untethered to principles, and that’s why, you know, I’m an anti-establishment Republican,” Ryan claimed, also describing himself as a “classical liberal” and “free market conservative.”
Neil Cavuto tells Paul Ryan he has a “great future” in politics if he wants back in.
Paul Ryan says he’s an “anti-establishment” Republican
Former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan has bemoaned being labeled a "Republican In Name Only" (RINO) in an interview on Fox News, where he is now a board member. Ryan, 54, called himself "an anti-establishment Republican" during an appearance with the network's Neil Cavuto, wherein he blasted former President Trump as "unfit for office."
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Far-left activist Lauren Windsor posed as a Catholic conservative to secretly record Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife at a gala in Washington, D.C., last week.
During the conversation, Alito – who has been the target of the far-left for weeks since their failed attacks on Justice Clarence Thomas – expressed doubts about the possibility of compromise between the political left and right in America.
“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,” Alito said in the secret recording handed to Rolling Stone magazine. He implied that compromise on significant ideological issues may be unattainable given heightened political rhetoric among lawmakers and voters.
“People in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness,” Windsor, posing as a conservative, asserted.
“I agree with you, I agree with you,” Alito responded. Democrat lawmakers and their corporate media allies jumped on Alito‘s comments as evidence that he is incapable of being impartial as a Supreme Court justice. However, in context, his remarks reveal little beyond the fact that Alito is a devout Catholic guided by his Christian moral framework—like many Americans. These interactions were captured in edited recordings and subsequently posted on social media on Monday.
Windsor defended her tactics by claiming, “I understand there’s a certain level of decorum around the Supreme Court… But this country right now is at a crossroads… Are we going to continue secular democracy, or are we going to be led to Christian theocracy by this Supreme Court?”
EXCLUSIVE UNDERCOVER AUDIO: Sam Alito x John Roberts x The Undercurrent 🧵
1/ Justice Alito admits lack of impartiality with the Left, says: “One side or the other is going to win.” pic.twitter.com/b5nmxToZ9z
Justice Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, also came under fire from Democrats over her comments captured on Windsor’s secret recordings. Far-left activists attempt to gin up outrage over Mrs. Alito’s remarks regarding a neighbor’s Pride flag. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month,” Justice Alito’s wife remarked in a conversation with Windsor. She added that she’d floated the idea with her husband, Justice Samuel Alito, to which he responded: “Oh, please, don’t put up a flag.”
The Alitos have been repeatedlysmeared in the media over their choice of flag displays. Democrat and progressive activists have pushed for Alito’s recusal, and even removal from the Supreme Court, after The New York Times reported that his wife had flown an upside-down American flag shortly before Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
The newspaper followed up by reporting that the Alito family had also flown an “Appeal to Heaven” revolutionary war flag outside their New Jersey beach house.
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Far-left activist Lauren Windsor posed as a Catholic conservative to secretly record Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife at a gala in Washington, D.C., last week.
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
The reason this is extremely troubling and very different to what, say, Project Veritas under James O’Keefe used to do, is that Supreme Court Justices are not politicians, bureaucrats, activists, or candidates
The reason this is extremely troubling and very different to what, say, Project Veritas under James O’Keefe used to do, is that Supreme Court Justices are not politicians, bureaucrats, activists, or candidates show more
Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes the European election results suggest the Overton Window is shifting on mass migration, with populists not only making progress, but the so-called “center-right” increasingly adopting populist-like stances on the issue.
Speaking to War Room host Stephen K. Bannon, Kassam compared the populist right’s shifting of the Overton Window on immigration to the left’s shifting of the Overton Window on climate change, with Britain’s Conservative Party (Tories), Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and other parties of the establishment right now as ideologically committed to the green agenda as the political left.
“Climate change is as much dogma, is as much a religion, to [the center right] as it is to the Social Democrat parties,” he said.
In the United States, the MAGA right has already shifted the Overton Window on migration and “especially on the economy,” Kassam argued.
In the same way the left shifted the Overton Window towards the climate change agenda, populists are shifting the Overton Window against mass migration, argues @RaheemKassam. pic.twitter.com/CsrZIfWPhA
Listen to Raheem Kassam discuss the European election results at length with Jack Posobiec here.
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Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, believes the European election results suggest the Overton Window is shifting on mass migration, with populists not only making progress, but the so-called "center-right" increasingly adopting populist-like stances on the issue.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is scrambling to whip votes for contempt charges against Joe Biden‘s Attorney General Merrick Garland ahead of a preliminary Rules Committee vote on Tuesday. Garland has refused to hand over audio recordings of Biden’s two interviews with Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Hur, in which written transcripts indicate the 81-year-old Democrat incumbent suffered numerous memory lapses and was sometimes visibly confused.
The Rules Committee vote means the Garland contempt resolution could see a vote before the full House of Representatives as soon as Wednesday. However, indecisiveness and internal hand-wringing by House leadership have allowed the contempt process to drag out for over a month, and now a group of moderate Republicans is threatening to derail a final vote altogether.
Moderate Republicans, numbering around ten or more, are demanding House leadership delay the vote in the hopes they can negotiate an off-ramp with Biden‘s Attorney General and avoid the final contempt vote. Whether the off-ramp would include Garland handing over the special counsel’s Biden interview audio is unclear.
While much of the media coverage of House Republicans has focused on the Freedom Caucus‘s contentious relationship with Johnson, it has ignored an equally tenuous relationship between the Republican Speaker and more moderate members of his party. House leadership’s inability to hold the Republican caucus together has resulted in it mainly pushing symbolic and toothless votes against the Biden government.
According to sources on Capitol Hill, Speaker Johnson and Tom Emmer (R-MN)—the House Majority Whip—have been unable or unwilling “to say no” to this moderate Republican faction, effectively giving them an outsized influence over the House’s legislative agenda. The narrow House Republican majority and inability to effectively whip votes have resulted in several embarrassing votes, including the on—again, off—again impeachment of Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, earlier this year.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is scrambling to whip votes for contempt charges against Joe Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland ahead of a preliminary Rules Committee vote on Tuesday. Garland has refused to hand over audio recordings of Biden's two interviews with Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Hur, in which written transcripts indicate the 81-year-old Democrat incumbent suffered numerous memory lapses and was sometimes visibly confused.
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Editor’s Notes
Behind-the-scenes political intrigue exclusively for Pulse+ subscribers.
Results in the European Parliament elections across 27 European Union (EU) member states are mostly in, with the biggest news being the shellacking of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance Party by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France. With his party having received only around half as much support as Le Pen’s party, President Macron has called a snap election, commencing at the end of June—a battle the former Rothschild banker is better equipped to fight on short notice than the populist leader, given his support from the corporate media and donor class.
Despite no truly earth-shattering populist breakthrough in Europe beyond France, as discussed by Raheem Kassam, Editor-in-Chief of The National Pulse, on Sunday, France was not the only point of interest in the European elections.
GERMANY.
The EU is often said to be driven by a Franco-German axis, and the German government was also shaken on Sunday. While the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party did not achieve as much support as Le Pen’s National Rally—which may form an alliance with the smaller right-populist Reconquest Party in the snap election, according to Marion Marechal—it placed ahead of the Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, and far ahead of his coalition partners in the far-left Greens and neoliberal Free Democrats.
The 13.9 percent secured by the Social Democrats is its worst result in a national election since the end of the Second World War. Support for the far-left Greens has halved in five years. Before Scholz became Chancellor, the “center-right” Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Angela Merkel had led the government for four consecutive terms, and its dire European results indicate it is likely to end up back in opposition after a single term.
The CDU, which topped the polls, is not a true conservative party, with Merkel governing as an open borders globalist despite winning support by declaring multiculturalism had “utterly failed” in 2010. Still, the party contains factions that are stronger on immigration, and these are likely to be empowered by the success of AfD, with the CDU forced to adopt more populist policies to stave off their ascent.
The German results speak to a growing divide between liberal former West Germany and ex-communist former East Germany, with the East being much more supportive of the AfD than the West.
While Macron has called a short-notice national election to try and reassert his authority after a heavy loss in the European elections, Alexander De Croo, the globalist Prime Minister of Belgium, has flat-out resigned. His Flemish Liberals and Democrats party (Open VLD) was hammered at the ballot box, crashing to 5.8 percent support.
The so-called “far-right” Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), which sits with Le Pen’s party in the Identity and Democracy euro-group in the European Parliament, achieved modest gains to place first overall. New Flemish Alliance, a more “moderate” but still populist-leaning party, which sits with the also more “moderate” but still populist-leaning European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) euro-group, was a close second.
Both are anti-mass migration, eurosceptic parties that support breaking Belgium up into Flemish-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, spelling trouble for a small nation that boasts outsized significance in the EU as the seat of its de facto capital of Brussels.
At first glance, the results for the populist right in Poland were not good. The national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost office to a globalist coalition after two terms in government last year, came second. It is the first time the party has placed second in a national election, including the last national and the recent local elections, since 2014, being eked out by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) by around one percent.
However, the even more overtly populist Konfederacja (Confederation) party moved into third place, tripling its support compared to the last European election in 2019. While its share of the vote, at a little under 13 percent, may seem low overall, Confederation appears to have room to grow. It is the most popular party among Poles aged 18-29, with over 30 percent support.
Lewica (the Left), one of Tusk’s coalition allies, lost over half its support compared to 2019.
VISEGRAD PLUS.
The picture across the rest of the Visegrad—Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia—was also mixed.
Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s party placed first, but with less support than in 2019—although after four consecutive terms in office nationally, any government would likely be losing some support at this point in its life cycle.
Slovak leader Robert Fico, recovering from an assassination attempt he has blamed on the globalist opposition and corporate media linked to George Soros, gained nine points compared to 2019, but placed second overall. Fico’s coalition partners, the relatively new Republika and Hlas parties, also gained around 12.5 and 7.2 percent. Republika gained just 0.2 percent in 2019, and Hlas did not even contest the last European election.
In Czechia, populist former prime minister Andrej Babiš’s ANO party won the European elections for the third time in a row, with increased support. Perhaps more interestingly, the populist Přísaha and Motoristé (Oath and Motorists) coalition secured a surprise third-place finish, with their colorful leader Filip Turek—a former racecar driver—promising to show up to the European Parliament in a car with a “large carbon footprint.”
Austria, which is not a Visegrad member but aligns with the Central European mini-bloc when the populist right is in the ascendant in Vienna, produced perhaps the most positive results, with the “far-right” Freedom Party (FPÖ) roughly doubling its 2019 support and placing first. Party leader Herbert Kickl is already pressing Le Pen to let the AfD back into the Identity and Democracy euro-group, with the German populists having been ousted after an embarrassing gaffe involving a qualified defense of the Waffen SS. Nationally, the FPÖ wields more influence than the AfD, with the CDU-like Austrian People’s Party being willing to form coalitions with the Austrian populists in order to govern.
IBERIA.
Spain’s populist Vox party continued its rise, hitting 9.6 percent support—up from 1.6 percent in 2014 and 6.2 percent in 2019—to place third overall. The establishment right Partido Popular (PP) also made considerable gains to place first, ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists. PP has worked with Vox, albeit reluctantly, at the regional level, showing that the populists can have an outsized impact on national politics.
Portugal’s version of Vox, the new Chega party, has burst onto the scene even more successfully than its Spanish counterpart, placing third on around 10 percent at its first attempt.
THE NETHERLANDS.
With the Netherlands’ longtime populist leader Geert Wilders poised to form a government following the Dutch national elections—though he is not, as POLITICOerroneously reports, the country’s prime minister—his Pary for Freedom (VVD) was being watched closely in the EU.
Although it did not place first, it greatly increased its vote share, from 3.5 percent to 17 percent.
ITALY.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI) party was perhaps the best-performing populist party in the European elections after Le Pen’s National Rally, placing first with its vote share up from 6.5 percent to around 30 percent.
While this meteoric rise suggests Meloni has staying power, it comes at the expense of Lega (League), Matteo Salvini’s populist party, which has crashed from over 34 percent—an even better result than Meloni’s—to just under 10 percent.
Meloni has also been a great disappointment in government. While the establishment feared she would be Italy’s most right-wing leader since Benito Mussolini, she has embraced legalized mass migration, achieved little on illegal immigration, and obsessed over Ukraine and sucking up to Joe Biden instead of delivering on her populist campaign platform.
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Results in the European Parliament elections across 27 European Union (EU) member states are mostly in, with the biggest news being the shellacking of Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance Party by Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France. With his party having received only around half as much support as Le Pen's party, President Macron has called a snap election, commencing at the end of June—a battle the former Rothschild banker is better equipped to fight on short notice than the populist leader, given his support from the corporate media and donor class.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his leadership team are whipping Republican members ahead of a potential vote on legislation that would allow sitting or former presidents to have state-level charges against them moved to federal court. The legislation is a direct response to the guilty verdict against former President Donald J. Trump—for falsifying business records—issued by a Manhattan jury at the end of May.
While on substance, the legislation actually makes sense and would be a sound reform to the American judicial system, and how it treats sitting and current presidents, in the hands of House Republicans, it is more a futile exercise in political messaging. The fact that Speaker Johnson is even having to whip the Republican conference on the matter doesn’t bode well for the legislation’s chances of passage. Even if the slim Republican House majority is able to stop its infighting long enough to adopt the measure, it will die a lonely death in the U.S. Senate, where the Democrat majority almost assuredly will not consider it.
Speaker Johnson isn’t entirely to blame for this futile exercise, however. Johnson is under pressure from some House Freedom Caucus members and other conservatives to take up the measure. This pressure is likely as much motivated by loyalty to former President Trump as it is by hoping to placate angry MAGA voters at home—outraged by Congress’s inaction.
The court venue measure is part of a three-bill package Johnson announced earlier this week. The package included cutting funding to the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ)’s special counsel prosecutions of former President Trump and increasing DOJ oversight.
In early May, The National Pulse reported that House Republicans were more concerned with sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Israel than they were with lawfare against Trump.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his leadership team are whipping Republican members ahead of a potential vote on legislation that would allow sitting or former presidents to have state-level charges against them moved to federal court. The legislation is a direct response to the guilty verdict against former President Donald J. Trump—for falsifying business records—issued by a Manhattan jury at the end of May.
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