TV News LIES

Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January.

Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis.

On Monday, Minnesota’s bureau of criminal apprehension (BCA), a state-level criminal investigative law enforcement agency, said the FBI had formally notified it that it would not share any information or evidence related to Pretti’s shooting.

The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, has demanded an “impartial” investigation into the shootings in Minneapolis.

“Trump’s left hand cannot investigate his right hand,” he said on Monday in response to the FBI’s refusal to share evidence. “The families of the deceased deserve better.”

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A growing number of Olympic athletes competing for the U.S. in this month’s Winter Games are expressing discomfort with representing the country under President Trump’s administration, sparking intense pushback from the president’s supporters and Trump himself. 

Trump attacked U.S. athlete Hunter Hess directly after Hess said he was conflicted about competing for Team USA given the country’s political climate.

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now. I think it’s a little hard,” Hess, a freestyle skier, told reporters during a recent press conference. “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” 

The president in a Truth Social post hours later called Hess a “real loser” and said it is “very hard to root for someone like this” when watching the games.

Hess’s comments came days after Amber Glenn, an American figure skater, decried the administration’s policies toward people in the LGBTQ community.

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Last week, we learned of the decision of the Texas A&M University board of regents to end women’s and gender studies programs as well as the teaching of “divisive concepts” such as race. A&M was not the first university to do this. Florida’s New College made the move in 2023. Other red state legislatures have passed similar requirements and their public universities (in North Carolina, Ohio and Kansas) have followed suit.

The move to cancel gender studies is explicitly justified as a way to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order of last year titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That document makes “the biological reality of sex” a matter not of science but of law.

Until this week’s latest dump of the Epstein files by Trump’s justice department, I hadn’t seen the connection between the two. But now it’s as clear as day. The abolition of gender studies is a way of further guaranteeing impunity to the elite men whose contempt for and exploitation of women and girls apparently knew no bounds, whether they actually slept with the women on offer or simply shared Epstein’s fantasies in order to gain influence or funding.

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At least a half-dozen top officials in the current Trump administration have connections to Jeffrey Epstein, according to an NBC News review of some of the over 3 million documents the Justice Department has released.

The degree to which each individual was connected to Epstein varies significantly, from a single email to years of communications. President Donald Trump, who had a lengthy relationship with Epstein, is mentioned thousands of times in the files. Trump has never been accused by authorities of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein, and has said he parted ways with him in the mid-2000s because he was a “creep.” He has also denied any wrongdoing.

During a testy oversight hearing on Wednesday. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on whether any current administration officials have been questioned by the Justice Department about their ties to Epstein.

"I'm stunned that you want to continue talking about Epstein," Bondi replied while sidestepping the question.

In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump praised Bondi's appearance at the Senate hearing and claimed that the files provide "conclusively" that he "has been 100% exonerated."

Some officials from previous Democratic administrations have appeared in the files — including former President Bill Clinton, his former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler.

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Former President Barack Obama said in a Feb. 14 interview that a video President Donald Trump posted that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, decried by many as racist, was part of a shameless "clown show."

Obama made the comments after podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen said in the interview that a series of messages from White House officials, such as the video posted by Trump and administration officials labeling people who died at the hands of ICE agents as "domestic terrorists," showed a level of cruelty that would have been disqualifying in earlier political times. He asked Obama how the country can come back from that discourse.

"It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction," Obama said. "But as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness."

"There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office," Obama added.

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President Donald Trump insisted in a Truth Social post on Feb. 13 that voter identification would be required for the upcoming midterm elections, even if it is not approved by Congress. He said he would "shortly" lay out the legal reasons for it "in the form of an Executive Order."

"The Democrats refuse to vote for Voter I.D., or Citizenship. The reason is very simple — They want to continue to cheat in Elections. This was not what our Founders desired," he wrote. "There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not! Also, the People of our Country are insisting on Citizenship, and No Mail-In Ballots, with exceptions for Military, Disability,

House Republicans passed legislation on Feb. 11 that would require proof of U.S. citizenship for voters ahead of the midterm elections. But the measure is expected to face major pushback in the Senate.

Previous versions of the bill failed to gain traction in both chambers last year. This latest iteration, which builds on the 2024 version by adding a voter ID provision, must get 60 votes to pass.

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