TV News LIES

Some Head Start early childhood programs are being told by the federal government to remove a list of nearly 200 words and phrases from their funding applications or they could be denied. That's according to recently submitted court documents.

The list of words includes "accessible," "belong," "Black," "disability," "female," "minority," "trauma," "tribal" and "women."

The list was submitted on Dec. 5, as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Head Start programs in a handful of states – including Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois – against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in federal programs conflicts with Head Start's statutory mandate. That mandate includes, among other things, providing "linguistically and culturally appropriate" services as well as early intervention services for children with disabilities.

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On Monday, Paramount Skydance launched a $108bn takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery, the entertainment giant that owns Hollywood movie studios, along with CNN, HBO and other media businesses. The bid is led by David Ellison, son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison – a prominent Donald Trump supporter and Republican donor.

Netflix had already prevailed over Paramount in a previous bidding competition for the purchase, but Trump announced on Sunday that he would “be involved” in his administration’s review of the Netflix deal. The president suggested the sale “could be a problem” because Netflix is already dominant in the US streaming market.

Paramount left out a significant fact in the press release announcing its offer: the bid includes funding from the private equity firm owned by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, as well as three Arab monarchies, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which collectively have billions of dollars in ongoing ventures involving the Trump family business. Those details were buried in required paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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A federal grand jury has declined to indict Letitia James, the New York attorney general, on mortgage fraud charges for the second time in a week, according to a person familiar with the matter, in an embarrassing blow to the Trump justice department as the president has sought retribution against one of his political rivals.

The department has attempted to twice file new charges against James after a judge dismissed an indictment against her after determining the prosecutor handling the case had not been properly appointed.

A decision by a federal grand jury is extremely rare. Only prosecutors appear before a grand jury and defendants do not to offer evidence in their support of their case. There is a legal axiom that “any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich”, underscoring the power prosecutors have over grand juries.

The justice department declined to comment.

“For the second time in seven days, the Department of Justice has failed in its clear attempt to fulfill President Trump’s political vendetta against Attorney General James. This unprecedented rejection makes even clearer that this case should never have seen the light of day,” said Abbe Lowell, a lawyer representing James. “This case already has been a stain on this Department’s reputation and raises troubling questions about its integrity. Any further attempt to revive these discredited charges would be a mockery of our system of justice.”

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The US’s sharpening ideological polarization is affecting a wider and much more junior cross-section of the country’s armed forces and challenging the military’s ability to remain above the political fray, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has said.

Retired Adm Mike Mullen, who was the US’s top military commander under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, called the political environment facing currently serving officers “challenging” and “the most dangerous time” in his memory.

Speaking at a security forum organized by the Aspen Institute thinktank on Wednesday, he warned that it had become much harder to maintain the armed forces’ traditional apolitical stance than when he served as joint chiefs chair between 2007 and 2011.

“I didn’t really understand how hard [the civilian-military relationship] was until I was in the middle of it,” he said. “I talked about the military being apolitical a lot in those four year and it’s only gotten harder. We have gotten so much more divided.”

Mullen’s comments follow accusations that the Trump administration has consciously sought to politicize the military by purging senior commanders and by deploying national guard units on unaccustomed law and order missions in American cities, including Washington DC, to counteract supposed “crime waves”.

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The head of U.S. Northern Command on Thursday contradicted President Trump’s assertion that an “invasion [from] within” or an “enemy within” justifies the commander in chief’s National Guard deployments to American cities.

“I do not have any indications of an enemy within,” Gen. Gregory Guillot told Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers when asked about Trump’s comments. “We maintain readiness to execute the orders to defend the homeland in many ways, but I have not been tasked in that way.”

Trump in late September declared that “an enemy within” was reason to deploy guard members in the United States. He also said the military “should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” referring to Democratic-run cities. 

“This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump told generals gathered Sept. 30 at Quantico, Va. “It won’t get out of control once you’re involved at all.”

Guillot’s remarks, at the top of a hearing on Trump’s guard deployment to several U.S. cities, underlined a point of contention between Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with the former arguing that the guard was needed to fight lawlessness as local officials had not done their job in keeping the public safe. Democrats, however, said the deployments were an abuse of military power that violated state rights.

“In recent years, violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking, and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” said the panel’s chair, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

He called the deployments to several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Portland; and Memphis “not only appropriate, but essential.”

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The U.S. Navy has submitted its report on the potential punishments for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) over a recent video where he and other Democratic lawmakers told U.S. service members to disobey “illegal orders.”

The report, which was ordered by the Defense Department and referred to the Navy, was sent to the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, “where they are providing a legal review and input,” a department official told The Hill on Thursday.

“It defies belief that with all of the threats facing our country, Pete Hegseth initiated this ridiculous process to try to intimidate Senator Kelly for saying something Pete Hegseth himself has said repeatedly,” Kelly’s spokesperson told The Hill in a statement on Thursday.

Kelly was never contacted or notified about the report and “it sure as hell won’t stop him from doing his job representing Arizona, whether that is voting today to lower health care costs or making sure our service members have what they need to do a very difficult job,” the spokesperson said, adding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump “could do themselves a big favor and learn about our country’s history, the Constitution and the rule of law.”

The Arizona senator retired from the Navy with the rank of captain and has deployed twice to the Persian Gulf. He has also worked as an instructor at the Naval Pilot School.

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