Judge OKs Eco-Activists’ Corporate Shakedown Using Kids as Pawns

Molly Bruns
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Judge OKs Eco-Activists’ Corporate Shakedown Using Kids as Pawns

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) After a district court judge in Montana sided with a group of 16 child-activists last August in a long-running lawsuit intended to force compliance with a radical environmentalist agenda, the same environmental lawfare organization announced plans last month to wage a new suit in California against the federal government.

The decision in Held v. Montana asserted that state-level representatives violated Montanan’s right to a clean and healthy environment, as guaranteed by the state’s constitution after the judge ruled climate change would not be considered when making movements on energy projects.

The activist legal organization known as Our Children’s Trust represented the plaintiffs in the case, using the testimony of several indoctrinated children to guilt trip judges and the public.

The case relied on 16 plaintiffs between ages 2 and 18 years old, who were largely exploited by a group of well-funded environmental activists in what has become a routine tactic to gain sympathy for their cause, most notoriously through protest groups like the Sunrise Movement.

The ruling in Montana means state leaders must consider climate change when making decisions on either new or renewed fossil-fuel projects, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

There is no apparent explanation of what merits the state government’s consideration.

Our Children’s Trust recently picked up another case in California, claiming the Environmental Protection Agency interfered with the rights of 18 Californians’—between ages eight and 17—by allowing greenhouse gas emissions.

Lawyers for Our Children’s Trust are also using young child “activists” in a similar case in Oregon, known as Juliana v. United States of America.

Lawyers on the case said in a court filing after the Held ruling that the recent ruling indicated the need for a similar resolution in Oregon.

However, the Oregon case challenged federal laws, not state-level ones as the Montana case did, as pointed out by the Department of Justice.

“The claims in Held relied on provisions in the Montana state constitution that explicitly confer a fundamental right to a ‘clean and healthful environment’ and ‘environmental life support system,’” the DOJ said. “That state constitution is not relevant here, and no analogous fundamental right exists under the U.S. Constitution.”

 

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In June, the plaintiffs amended their case in order to avoid it being tossed altogether; the DOJ challenged the amendments in an attempt to avoid trial.

Julia Olsen, executive director and chief legal counsel of OCT, claimed the case is a “groundbreaking” effort to defend kids rights, and expressed surprise that the Biden administration continues to avoid taking the case to trial.

Report: FBI Received Tip Related to Iowa School Shooter Months before Attack

Ken Silva
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Report: FBI Received Tip Related to Iowa School Shooter Months before Attack

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The FBI received a tip about the chatroom that 17-year-old Dylan Butler used months before he reportedly killed a sixth grader, injured four others and fatally shot himself at a school last Thursday in Iowa, according to a report from NBC News.

NBC reported Sunday that Butler was a member of the Discord chat group called School Massacres Discussion,” which was dedicated to discussing school shootings. Butler reportedly posted on Discord under the username “tooktoomuch,” which was also the name he used on TikTok.

On Discord, Butler, who reportedly self-identified as “genderfluid,” told other users that he was “gearing up” moments before Thursday’s attack, and that he was at the school and ready “for what’s to come.”

“I’m f—— nervous, I’m the bathroom gearing up,” he reportedly wrote, adding minutes later: “There’s a n—– in the bathroom, I need him to leave so I can assemble my guns.”

According to NBC, another Discord user had notified the FBI about the chatroom months ago.

“The Discord user said they had flagged the chatroom to the FBI in November, after which an FBI agent reached out over email and asked for more information,” NBC reported Monday.

“The user emailed the FBI agent screenshots of the server but did not hear back. The user said their report to the FBI did not include mention of the user ‘took2much.’ The chatroom was closed before the shooting.”

The FBI reportedly declined to comment, while Discord admitted that Butler used its platform.

Last Thursday’s shooting marks at least the 23rd time that the FBI has failed to stop mass shooters before they go on their sprees, despite receiving early warning signs.

The shootings was also at least the second one to be discussed on Discord before it happened. In May 2022, Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron had been chatting on Discord with a “retired federal agent” moments before he killed 10 people at a supermarket.

According to The Buffalo News, the retired federal agent may have been one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed.

Along with mass shootings, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s intelligence division allegedly leaked highly sensitive Pentagon documents on a Discord server last year.

The Biden administration responded to that leak with plans to drastically increase government monitoring of chatrooms.

Citing an anonymous administration official and a congressional official who was briefed on the matter, NBC News reported last April that the Biden White House is “looking at expanding the universe of online sites that intelligence agencies and law enforcement authorities track.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Epstein Victim Claimed Existence of Bill Clinton Sex Tape, Unsealed Docs Show

Ken Silva
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Epstein Victim Claimed Existence of Bill Clinton Sex Tape, Unsealed Docs Show

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A new batch of records from the Jeffrey Epstein civil litigation was unsealed Monday, showing that one of Epstein’s victims claimed in 2016 that there were sex tapes featuring Bill Clinton, as well as billionaire Richard Branson and Prince Andrew.

The victim, Sarah Ransome, also alleged in emails that one of her friends had a sexual relationship with Donald Trump, whom she referred to in emails as a pedophile.

While Ransome’s emails contain explosive allegations, Epstein’s attorney, Alan Dershowitz, called them completely meritless. In fact, it was Dershowitz who pushed to have the emails to be released on the grounds that they would undermine the credibility of Ransome, who also accused him of rape.

“The Emails will demonstrate that Ms. Ransome’s inflammatory, salacious, and defamatory testimony concerning the Intervenor and others is false and that the deponent is not credible,” Dershowitz said in a letter seeking to remove the confidentiality designation for Ransome’s emails.

The emails Dershowitz sought to have released include one where Ransome said claimed the existence of sex tapes.

“When my friend had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson, sex tapes were in fact filmed on each separate occasion by Jeffery. Thank God she managed to get a hold of some footage of the filmed sex tapes, which clearly identify the faces of Clinton, Prince Andrew and Branson having sexual intercourse with her,” Ransome wrote in October 2016 to then-New York Post columnist Maureen Callahan.

In another email, Ransome said she had a friend who had sex with Trump.

“Donald Trump liked flicking and sucking her nipples until they were raw. One evening when we were showering together she showed me her nipples. They looked incredibly painful as they were red and swollen and I remember wincing when I looked at them,” Ransome said.

“I also know she had sexual relations with Trump at Jeffery’s NY mansion on regular occasions as I once met Jen for coffee, just before she was going to meet Trump and Epstein together at his mansion.”

The emails show that Ransome was promising to provide evidence of her allegations to Callahan, who was investigating the Epstein case at the time. However, Ransome changed her mind.

“I have spoken to my family at some length this morning and I would like to retract everything I have said to you and walk away from this,” she said in a late October 2016 email.

“I shouldn’t have contacted you and I’m sorry I wasted your time. It’s not worth coming forward and I will never be heard anyhow and only bad things will happen as a consequence of me going public and I know this to be true.”

Ransome would later provide a victim impact statement after Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty on sex-trafficking charges in late 2021.

She also filed an unsuccessful objection last year to the settlement between Epstein victims as JP Morgan Chase, which banked Epstein for years.

Ransome’s objection outlined the conflicts of interest between the plaintiffs’ lawyers and the victims.

“I am also objecting to the involvement of class counsel David Boies, who has maintained a cozy relationship with Bill Clinton, a well-known associate of Jeffrey Epstein (as well as Harvey Weinstein),” she said in her objection last October.

According to Ransome, Boies represents another victim, Juliette Bryant, who was “trafficked with the aid of Bill Clinton.”

“It concerns me that all these powerful men remain strangely connected,” she said at the time.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

First U.S. Moon Landing in 51 Yrs to Carry Human Remains, Toy Cars

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First U.S. Moon Landing in 51 Yrs to Carry Human Remains, Toy Cars

(Headline USA) The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed toward the moon Monday, launching private companies on a space race to make deliveries for NASA and other customers.

Astrobotic Technology’s lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon that should culminate with an attempted landing on Feb. 23.

“So, so, so excited. We are on our way to the moon!” Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton said.

The Pittsburgh company aims to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. But a Houston company also has a lander ready to fly, and could beat it to the lunar surface, taking a more direct path.

“First to launch. First to land is TBD,” to be determined, Thornton noted.

NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers. The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering NASA tech and science experiments as well as odds and ends for other customers. Astrobotic’s contract for the Peregrine lander: $108 million.

The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle.

The space agency’s new Artemis program—named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology—looks to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next few years. First will be a lunar fly-around with four astronauts, possibly before the end of the year.

Highlighting Monday’s moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The 202-foot rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s hugely successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta IV.

Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, provided the Vulcan’s two main engines.

ULA declared success once the lander was free of the rocket’s upper stage, nearly an hour into the flight. “Yee-haw!” shouted chief executive Tory Bruno. “I am so thrilled, I can’t tell you how much.”

The Soviet Union and the U.S. racked up a string of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, before putting touchdowns on pause.

China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year also saw landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019.

Next month, SpaceX will provide the lift for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander’s more direct one-week route could see both spacecraft attempting to land within days or even hours of one another.

The hourlong descent to the lunar surface—by far the biggest challenge—will be “exciting, nail-biting, terrifying all at once,” Thornton said.

Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic drummed up its own freight business, packing the 6-foot-tall Peregrine lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest and toy-size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around, to the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains, saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans.

Thornton said the December objections came too late but promised to try to find “a good path forward” with the Navajo for future missions.

One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission.

More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was boosted into a perpetual orbit around the sun reaching as far out as Mars.

Cargo fares for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds), not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that’s not the point, according to Thornton.

“A lot of people’s dreams and hopes are riding on this,” he said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Pentagon Scrambles to Explain Defense Sec.’s Scandalous Hospital Stay

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Pentagon Scrambles to Explain Defense Sec.’s Scandalous Hospital Stay

(Headline USA) The Pentagon released new details Sunday about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s continued hospitalization, saying he had a medical procedure Dec. 22, went home a day later and was admitted to intensive care Jan. 1 when he began experiencing severe pain.

The latest information came as members of both parties in Congress expressed sharp concerns about the secrecy of Austin’s hospital stay and the fact that the president and other senior leaders were kept in the dark about it for days.

Austin, the first African-American appointed to lead the Defense Department, has come under a litany of criticisms for supplanting military readiness with a woke agenda that prioritizes abortion, transgenderism and critical race theory. On his watch, military recruitment in nearly all branches of services has plummeted significantly.

He also was criticized over the Pentagon’s failure to hold itself accountable in the aftermath of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal—including the terrorist bombing that killed several U.S. servicemembers and a retaliatory drone strike that killed an innocent man and several members of his family.

The statement, released by Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, did not, however, provide any details about the medical procedure or what actually happened on Monday to require Austin to be in intensive care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Ryan said Austin was placed in the hospital’s intensive care unit “due to his medical needs, but then remained in that location in part due to hospital space considerations and privacy.”

The Pentagon’s failure to disclose Austin’s hospitalization, including to President Joe Biden, the National Security Council and top Pentagon leaders, for days reflects a stunning lack of transparency about his illness, how serious it was and when he may be released.

Such secrecy, when the United States is juggling myriad national security crises, runs counter to normal practice with the president and other senior U.S. officials and Cabinet members.

Ryder said the National Security Council and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks were not notified until Thursday, Jan. 4, that Austin had been hospitalized since Jan. 1.

Ryder said Austin’s chief of staff, Kelly Magsamen, was ill and “unable to make notifications before then.” He said she informed Hicks and the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Thursday.

Once notified, Hicks began preparing statements to send to Congress and made plans to return to Washington. Hicks was in Puerto Rico on leave but had communications equipment with her to remain in contact and had already been tasked with some secretary-level duties on Tuesday.

The Pentagon did not say if Hicks was given an explanation on Tuesday for why she was assuming some of Austin’s duties, but temporary transfers of authority are not unusual and are often done without detailed explanations. Hicks decided not to return after she was informed that Austin would resume full control on Friday.

Biden was told of Austin’s medical stay on Thursday by Sullivan, according to three people with knowledge of the hospitalization who were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

In a statement issued Saturday evening, Austin took responsibility for the delays in notification.

“I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” he said, acknowledging the concerns about transparency. “But this is important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure.”

Austin, 70, remains hospitalized and officials have been unable to say how long he will be at Walter Reed. In his statement, Austin said he is on the mend and is looking forward to returning to the Pentagon soon, but he provided no other details about his ailment.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the episode erodes trust in the Biden administration and called on the department to provide lawmakers with a “full accounting of the facts immediately.”

“I am glad to hear Secretary Austin is in improved condition and I wish him a speedy recovery,” Wicker said in a statement. “However, the fact remains that the Department of Defense deliberately withheld the Secretary of Defense’s medical condition for days. That is unacceptable.”

It wasn’t just Republicans expressing alarm. In a joint statement, Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., said they were “concerned with how the disclosure of the Secretary’s condition was handled.”

Among the questions they had were what the medical procedure was and what the resulting complications were, how and when the delegation of his responsibilities was made, and the reason for the delay in notification to the president and lawmakers. Rogers is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Smith is the panel’s top Democrat.

“Transparency is vitally important,” said the two lawmakers. Austin “must provide these additional details on his health and the decision-making process that occurred in the past week as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, the Biden White House itself sought to circle the wagons in the latest example of its utter refusal to accept accountability for its mistakes or miscalculations.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced support for Austin at a news conference in Qatar on Sunday.

“He is an extraordinary leader in this country, in uniform and now out of uniform,” Blinken said. “And it’s been a highlight of my service to be able to serve alongside him.”

He hinted that it was unlikely his Cabinet colleague would either be asked or take it upon himself to resign without additional actions from Congress to hold him accountable.

“I’m very much looking forward to see him fully recovered and working side by side in the year ahead,” Blinken said.

Ryder said Austin is able to do his full duties, has secure communications at Walter Reed, and is in contact with his senior team, getting updates and providing guidance. He said he doesn’t know if Austin will do in-person briefings this coming week.

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest on Friday evening, calling the delay in alerting the public “an outrage.”

“At a time when there are growing threats to U.S. military service members in the Middle East and the U.S. is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader,” the group said in its letter.

Other senior U.S. leaders have been more transparent about hospital stays. When Attorney General Merrick Garland went in for a routine medical procedure in 2022, his office informed the public a week in advance and outlined how long he was expected to be out and when he would return to work.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

J6 Provocateur Ray Epps Seeks Probation Instead of Prison Time

Ken Silva
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J6 Provocateur Ray Epps Seeks Probation Instead of Prison Time

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Capitol Hill provocateur Ray Epps asked a judge for probation in a sentencing memo filed Monday, denying the Justice Department’s characterization of his behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, as “felonious.”

Epps, who encouraged other protestors to go into the Capitol building and who committed violence on Jan. 6, faces a lone misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct. Last week, DOJ prosecutors asked for a judge to sentence him to six months imprisonment—a punishment that’s been criticized as relatively light for a man who helped stoke the riot.

“Although Epps engaged in felonious conduct during the riot on January 6, his case includes a variety of distinctive and compelling mitigating factors, which led the government to exercise its prosecutorial discretion and offer Epps a pre-indictment misdemeanor plea resolution,” the DOJ said last week.

“Specifically, Epps: (1) turned himself in to the FBI two days after the riot, on January 8, 2021, immediately after becoming aware the FBI was seeking to identify him; (2) cooperated with both the FBI and Congress, participating in multiple lengthy voluntary interviews; and (3) engaged in at least five efforts on January 6 to deescalate conflict and avoid violence between rioters and police officers.”

However, the DOJ downplaying his conduct apparently wasn’t good enough for Epps.

In his response on Monday, Epps denied that his conduct was felonious. Even though he is caught on camera helping other protestors push a sign into a group of police officers, Epps said that’s not what really happened.

“Mr. Epps barely touched the sign as it passed directly over, and by, him. If he had not lifted it over his head, it would have been pushed right into him … Nor was he pushing forward in unison with others before he worked his way to the front,” Epps said in his sentencing memo.

“To the contrary, Mr. Epps felt stuck in the middle of a congested crowd. He moved as he could to get out of it. The videos show him moments later walking in free space between protestors and officers, trying to deescalate the protestors in support of the police officers.”

Epps is set to be sentenced Tuesday.

He has claimed that the DOJ’s trespassing charge against him disproves the theory that he was a federal asset who encouraged Trump supporters to commit violence on Jan. 6.

“In May 2023, the Department of Justice notified Epps that it would seek to charge him criminally for events on January 6, 2021—two-and-a-half years later. The relentless attacks by Fox and [Tucker] Carlson and the resulting political pressure likely resulted in the criminal charges,” Epps said last year in a lawsuit against Fox News, which is still ongoing.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Las Vegas Assailant Who Attacked Judge in Courtroom to Face Her Again

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Las Vegas Assailant Who Attacked Judge in Courtroom to Face Her Again

(Headline USA) A defendant who was captured in courtroom video leaping over a judge’s bench and attacking her, touching off a bloody brawl, was scheduled to appear before her again Monday morning.

In his Jan. 3 appearance before Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus, Deobra Redden, who was facing prison time for a felony battery charge stemming from a baseball bat attack last year, tried to convince the judge that he was turning around his violent past.

Redden asked for leniency while describing himself as “a person who never stops trying to do the right thing no matter how hard it is.”

But when it became clear Holthus was going to sentence him to prison time, and as the court marshal moved to handcuff and take him into custody, Redden yelled expletives and charged forward. People in the courtroom audience, including his foster mother, began to scream.

Redden vaulted a defense table, dove over the judge’s bench and landed atop Holthus. The video showed the judge falling back against a wall and an American flag toppling on them.

Redden “supermanned over the judicial bench,” Jerry Wiese, the court’s chief judge, said in a description of the leap to reach Holthus.

The defendant, who had grabbed the judge’s hair, had to be wrestled off her by her clerk, Michael Lasso, and several court and jail officers, some of whom threw punches. Lasso was treated for cuts on his hands and a marshal was hospitalized for a dislocated shoulder and a gash on his forehead.

Holthus suffered some injuries but was back to work the next day.

Wiese credited Lasso for acting quickly, saying he was the “primary person” who pulled Redden off the judge “and probably kept her from having more severe injuries.”

Redden’s defense attorney, Caesar Almase, declined to comment.

Redden was jailed on $54,000 bail in connection with the attack but refused to return to court the next day on the new charges, so a judge rescheduled his next appearance in that case for Tuesday.

Records showed he faced charges including extortion, coercion with force and battery on a protected person, referring to the judge and the officers who came to her aid.

At the Monday appearance, Holthus was expected to continue sentencing in Redden’s other case, involving the baseball bat attack.

He initially was charged with assault but reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty in November to a reduced charge of attempted battery resulting in substantial injuries.

Redden’s criminal record is marked by mostly violent offenses and includes prior convictions for three felonies and nine misdemeanors, District Attorney Steve Wolfson said.

“He’s been violent his entire adult life,” Wolfson said.

Redden, 30, had tried to convince the judge otherwise Wednesday.

“I’m not a rebellious person,” he told her, adding that he didn’t think he should be sent to prison. “But if it’s appropriate for you, then you have to do what you have to do.”

Redden was not shackled or wearing jail attire at the time of the attack because he had been released from custody while awaiting sentencing.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Judge Blocks Mention of Dubious ‘Rape’ Claim at Trump Defamation Trial

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Judge Blocks Mention of Dubious ‘Rape’ Claim at Trump Defamation Trial

(Headline USA) A judge late Saturday said former President Donald Trump’s lawyers can’t present legal arguments to a jury assessing damages at a defamation trial on a jury’s conclusion last year that he didn’t rape a columnist in the mid-1990s.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, made the determination in an order in advance of a Jan. 16 trial to determine defamation damages against Trump after a jury concluded Trump sexually abused columnist E. Jean Carroll but did not find evidence was sufficient to conclude that he raped her.

Trump, speaking in Iowa on Saturday as the Republican frontrunning presidential candidate in advance of a Jan. 15 primary, criticized the judge as a “radical Democrat” and mocked Carroll for not screaming when she was attacked.

“It was all made up,” he said.

Carroll, 80, won a $5 million award last May from a jury that concluded Trump sexually abused her in 1996 in a luxury department store dressing room and defamed her in 2022.

Trump did not attend the Manhattan trial where Carroll testified that a chance encounter at a Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower was flirtatious and fun until he slammed her against a wall in a dressing room and attacked her sexually. Trump has vehemently denied it.

In this month’s trial, a jury will consider whether damages should be levied against Trump for remarks he made after last year’s verdict and in 2019 while he was president after Carroll, in a memoir, made her allegations against Trump for the first time about her mid-1990s encounter with the Manhattan real-estate mogul.

Carroll’s lawyers had asked the judge to issue the order, saying that Trump’s attorneys should not be allowed to confuse jurors this month about last year’s verdict by trying to argue that the jury disbelieved Carroll’s rape claim.

They said the jury’s finding reflected its conclusion that Trump had forcibly and without consent digitally penetrated Carroll’s vagina, which does not constitute rape under New York state law but which constitutes rape in other jurisdictions.

Carroll was subsequently revealed to have been bankrolled by an anti-Trump billionaire, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and to have played a significant role in the activist push for New York’s legislature to temporarily suspend the statute of limitations on all sexual assault claims in its Adult Survivors Act.

Her testimony during the trial was oftentimes hazy and inconsistent, with no witnesses able to corroborate her account except for hearsay and Carroll herself often changing details of the story.

Carroll’s lawyers said the “sting of the defamation was Mr. Trump’s assertions that Ms. Carroll’s charge of sexual abuse was an entirely untruthful fabrication and one made up for improper or even nefarious reasons.”

A lawyer for Trump did not immediately return a message Saturday.

Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and substantially more in unspecified punitive damages at the trial. She will testify and Trump is listed as a witness. The trial is expected to last about a week.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

JP Morgan Forecast: Biden to Exit Office Early Due to Failing Health

Ken Silva
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JP Morgan Forecast: Biden to Exit Office Early Due to Failing Health

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) JPMorgan Chase has published financial predictions for 2024, forecasting that President Joe Biden may leave office before the November elections due to his failing health.

JP Morgan’s prediction was made in its annual outlook report, in which it outlines expectations for the coming year. Overall, the mega bank predicts slowing economic growth—but not collapse—and growing debt among developed nations.

A much bolder prediction was made towards the end of the report: “President Biden withdraws sometime between Super Tuesday and the November election, citing health reasons. Biden passes the torch to a replacement candidate named by the Democratic National Committee.”

The report explained that Biden has a low approval rating, considering that the U.S. economy has had about a 10% job creation since his inauguration. The report attributed much of the growth under Biden as a by-product of his inauguration coinciding with the rollout of COVID vaccines and a reopening US economy.

The prediction about Biden’s exodus was one of JP Morgan’s “top ten surprises for 2024.” Other predictions were that the U.S. dollar will remain stable, the Justice Department will win one of its major antitrust cases and that the war in Ukraine will continue without a ceasefire.

Biden, 81, still insists on running again, despite the numerous signals about his failing health.

Most recently, he had to be ushered off the stage by handler-in-chief Jill Biden at the end of a 30-minute speech denouncing Donald Trump.

Biden currently has the lowest public approval rating of any president seeking re-election in modern history and is trailing Trump by 2.2 percentage points according to the latest average from RealClearPolitics.

Trump holds moderate advantages in all of the major battleground states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona and Michigan.

Even far-left CNN currently projects Trump to win the November race with a 272–225 Electoral College victory while leaving the Democrat controlled Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin undecided.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Fla. GOP Votes on Removing Party Chairman amid Rape Allegations

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Fla. GOP Votes on Removing Party Chairman amid Rape Allegations

(Headline USA) The Republican Party of Florida is scheduled to hold a special meeting Monday to vote on removing Chairman Christian Ziegler and select a new leader as police investigate a rape accusation against him.

The meeting is expected to be held behind closed doors at a Tallahassee conference center.

The party suspended Ziegler last month and demanded his resignation, saying he can’t effectively lead during a critical election year with the allegations, which Ziegler denies, swirling around him.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and other Republican leaders have called on Ziegler to step down, but he has refused.

“We have to move past this and have to focus on 2024. Florida’s one of the most important states for the Republicans and we have to continue to bring home victories, especially for Rick Scott and the top of the ticket with Trump as our nominee, eventually,” said state Sen. Joe Gruters, who preceded Ziegler as party chair.

Scott is up for re-election this year. Former President Donald Trump, a Florida resident, and DeSantis are both running in the GOP primary, with Trump expected to be the nominee based on polling.

Ziegler and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, have admitted to police that they previously had a consensual sexual relationship with Christian Ziegler’s accuser.

The Sarasota Police Department is investigating the woman’s accusation that Ziegler raped her at her apartment in October.

Police documents say the Zieglers and the woman had planned a sexual threesome that day, but Bridget Ziegler was unable to attend. The accuser claimed Christian Ziegler arrived anyway and assaulted her.

Christian Ziegler has not been charged with a crime and says he is innocent, contending the encounter was consensual.

Bridget Ziegler, an elected member of the Sarasota School Board, is not accused of any crime. The board voted to ask her to resign last month but she refused.

In December, Brooke Weiss, a Moms for Liberty spokesperson, told Headline USA that Ziegler’s current involvement with the influential parent’s rights group was limited at best after stepping back from the organization’s management board in January 2021.

Ziegler “basically signed the founding documents and then left our organization within the first month,” Weiss said. “… The left would love to take us down, but this scandal has absolutely nothing to do with us.”

Weiss said that Moms for Liberty took “all sexual assault allegations seriously.”

Nonetheless, the group refused to allow the smear campaign to distract from its message and fundamental objectives,” which included efforts to curtail the promotion of sexual deviancy in the nation’s public education system.

“Moms for Liberty is going to continue to stay mission focused on unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights,” Weiss said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

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