TV News LIES

A federal judge chided the Department of Justice (DOJ) during a Wednesday hearing where he agreed to dismiss a trespassing charge against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) that stemmed from his visit to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility earlier this month alongside three Democratic members of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Andre Espinosa said the arrest suggested a “worrisome misstep” by the New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office, noting the “apparent rush” in bringing the case that culminated in the government’s “embarrassing” retraction of the charge.

He dismissed the complaint against Baraka with prejudice, meaning the charge cannot be brought again.

“Your role is not to secure convictions at all costs, nor to satisfy public clamor, nor to advance political agendas,” Espinosa said to the government’s lawyer. “Your allegiance is to the impartial application of the law, to the pursuit of truth and to the upholding of due process for all.”

More...

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa brought two championship golfers from his country and a 14-kilogram book showcasing South Africa's greatest golf courses.

But even his best attempts to appeal to President Donald Trump's golf fandom couldn't shield him from becoming the latest target of an Oval Office ambush.

In a wild one-hour May 21 meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa ‒ rivaled only by Trump's memorable clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February ‒ Trump accused the South African leader of overseeing "genocide" against White people, played a video to try to prove the false claim and lashed out at a reporter who asked about his administration accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar.

"I'm sorry I don't have a plane to give you," Ramaphosa quipped after things got heated, about 20 minutes into the meeting.

"I wish you did. I'd take it," Trump said. "If your country offered the U.S. Air Force a plane, I would take it."

More...

Huge expanses of ice are melting alarmingly fast, raising new concerns about "catastrophic consequences for humanity," a study published May 20 says.

The study focuses on two masses of ice currently sitting on land: The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. As temperatures rise, that ice is melting, flowing into the ocean and making sea levels rise.

While change in sea level rise is often measured in centimeters or inches, the ice melt potential of these sheets could raise sea levels dozens of feet.

It's happening even faster than expected, authors warn in the study published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

“Recent satellite-based observations of ice sheet mass loss have been a huge wake-up call for the whole scientific and policy community working on sea-level rise and its impacts," said study co-author Jonathan Bamber, of the University of Bristol in the UK.

More...

The Justice Department is dropping negotiations for court-approved settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville police agencies, despite having found that authorities routinely violated the civil rights of Black people.

The two cases sparked worldwide outrage over fatal police encounters in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s final year in office. Federal authorities also are closing investigations and retracting findings of wrongdoing against police departments in Phoenix; Memphis, Tennessee; Trenton, New Jersey; Mount Vernon, New York; Oklahoma City; and the Louisiana State Police.

“Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general overseeing the department's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement May 21.

More...

The Pentagon has accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar to be used as Air Force One, the president’s plane, according to the Defense Department.

The unprecedented $400 million gift, which President Donald Trump has said will transfer to his library after his term ends, will require extensive renovation to serve essentially as the flying White House.

“The Secretary of Defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations," Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman said in a May 21 statement. "The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States."

Qatar offered Trump the plane during his trip last week to the Middle East. News of the offer drew immediate condemnation from Senate Democrats.

More...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with anger Tuesday after a former senior military official said Israel risked becoming “a pariah state” over the war in Gaza.

“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement,” Yair Golan, a left-wing opposition voice and the former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army, said in a charged interview with local radio station Reshet Bet.

Comparing Israel's actions to those of South Africa during the decades of apartheid, Golan, the leader of the small Democrats party and a longtime critic of Netanyahu, added, “The Jewish people, who have endured persecution, pogroms, and genocides throughout our history ... are the ones now taking actions that are utterly unconscionable.”

Golan’s words drew swift condemnation, with Netanyahu calling them an “outrageous incitement against our heroic soldiers and against the State of Israel.”

More...

A federal judge in Massachusetts questioned the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday about whether it had deported any migrants to South Sudan.

The judge, Brian Murphy, had in April barred any deportations of migrants from the U.S. to countries other than their own, unless they're given sufficient time to contest their deportations, and a notice in their native language.

But lawyers for at least one migrant, originally from Vietnam and known by the initials T.T.P in the court case, alleged he was on his way to South Sudan in Africa, the world's youngest country. The lawyers spoke during an emergency remote hearing Murphy called on Tuesday evening.

They argued that their Vietnamese client was given less than 24 hours' notice of his removal, and had no ability to contest it in his native language.

More...