Trump announces Pam Bondi is his new AG pick after Gaetz withdraws

Trump announces Pam Bondi is his new AG pick after Gaetz withdraws
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(NEW YORK) — On the same day that former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general, Trump announced that he will pick former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to fill that role in his administration.

Bondi, 59, has remained in Trump’s inner circle for years and has continued to advise him on legal matters. She was one of the lawyers who defended Trump during his first Senate impeachment trial.

“I have known Pam for many years — She is smart and tough, and is an AMERICA FIRST Fighter, who will do a terrific job as Attorney General!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

Bondi’s nomination must be confirmed by the Senate. She did not immediately comment about Trump’s announcement.

For more than a decade, Bondi has been a key Trump supporter and has been involved in some controversies, including the “big lie,” pushed by Trump in 2020.

In 2013, the Trump Foundation sent a $25,000 donation to Bondi’s fundraising committee for her attorney general reelection campaign. Around the same time, Bondi’s office had been considering reviewing a lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general’s office that probed Trump and Trump University, but it ultimately did not join the suit.

Bondi and Trump both denied allegations that the donation led to her decision to not join the lawsuit. She endorsed Trump for his presidential run and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention leading a “lock her up chant” against then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. She also served as a co-chair of Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.

Bondi left the Florida Attorney General’s office in 2019 and a year later was named part of Trump’s defense team for his first impeachment trial. He was acquitted in the Senate.

Bondi continued to be part of Trump’s legal team during the 2020 election and repeatedly made false claims about voter fraud when he lost to Joe Biden.

Recently, she has been a member of the conservative think tank America First Policy Institute where she serves as the chair for the Center for Litigation, and co-chair of the Center for Law and Justice, according to the think tank’s website.

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Pentagon’s UFO report finds over 700 new cases, with 21 the agency could not explain
Pentagon’s UFO report finds over 700 new cases, with 21 the agency could not explain
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(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon and the Director of National Intelligence have released the annual report on UFO sightings and while they still haven’t found any extraterrestrial origin for the more than 700 new reports that came in last year, there are about two dozen that have them really curious.

UAP is the term the Pentagon and the intelligence community use to describe UFOs, which stands for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The agency that reviews all of the new incidents being reported by military personnel and now additional federal agencies is the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).

From May 2023 to June 2024, AARO received 757 new incident reports, 485 that occurred in that time period and another 272 reports from 2021 and 2022 that had not been previously sent to the agency. That’s a sizable increase from previous reports, for example, last year’s report cited 281 new reports during its review period, something Pentagon officials said Thursday was due to a greater awareness about reporting UAP incidents, not that they have been growing in frequency.

Overall the total number of cases that have been reviewed by AARO since its founding is now 1,652.

AARO has “discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology” according to this year’s report. A small number of this year’s reports had terrestrial explanations and a significant number will be left for further review, but one thing they haven’t found is that some of the reports are attributable to a “breakthrough” technology.

However, during a press briefing Thursday, the head of AARO acknowledged that there are 21 reports over the last year and a half that he can’t really explain.

“There are interesting cases that with my physics and engineering background and time in the I.C. I do not understand, and I don’t know anybody else understands them,” said Dr. Jon Kosloski, the new director of AARO. Kosloski said the 21 incidents occurred near national security sites and were recorded on video, had multiple eyewitnesses or were captured by other sensors.

So what do these unexplainable UAPs look like? “Orbs, cylinders, triangles, in one of the cases, it has been happening over an extended period of time, and it is possible that there’s multiple things happening” Kosloski said, adding that the incidents might include drone activity that’s being conflated with a UAP.

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Early in-person voting begins in three key states
Early in-person voting begins in three key states
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(WASHINGTON) — The 2024 voting season officially kicked off Friday, as voters in three states can now line up at early voting polling sites or election offices to cast their ballot.

Early in-person voting sites opened throughout Virginia, on Friday, marking the first state to offer their voters that option. The state’s early voting sites will remain open until Nov. 2.

Over 1,796,000 votes were cast early in person in Virginia in the last presidential election, roughly 40% of the total vote, according to data from the Virginia Department of Elections. An additional 962,877 Virginia voters cast their 2020 ballot through the mail, with roughly 574,000 submitting their mail-in ballot before Election Day, according to the election data.

While the voters will be lining up at the polls in Virginia, voters in two other states will have the opportunity, starting Friday, to cast their ballot in person through a different method.

Minnesota and South Dakota are among 23 states that allow voters to hand in their absentee ballots in person to an election office or other designated location instead of mailing them.

In the last presidential election, over 1.9 million Minnesota voters voted via absentee, with 1.7 million of those ballots being returned before election day, according to the state’s Office of the Secretary of State.

Roughly 57% of the total Minnesota 2020 election ballots were cast before Election Day, according to the state data.

The office does not have data on the number of 2020 voters who opted to hand in their absentee ballot to an office.

Roughly 83,000 South Dakota voters cast their ballot through in-person absentee drop-off before Election Day in 2020, according to South Dakota’s secretary of state office.

Voters in a handful of other states who requested an absentee ballot can soon start checking their mailboxes, as this weekend also marks the deadline for some election offices to begin sending out their absentee ballots.

Idaho, Maryland, New York and West Virginia are all required to send out their absentee ballots Friday to all voters who requested one, according to the respective states’ election offices.

North Carolina must send out absentee ballots to military and overseas voters on Friday, according to the state’s election office.

Delaware, Indiana, New Jersey and Tennessee are required to send absentee ballots to their voters by Saturday, according to the states’ respective election offices. Some counties in Oklahoma may start sending their paper ballots to voters on that day, too, according to the state’s election office.

Experts predict there will be a large number of early voters this election season as the voting method has risen in popularity.

During the 2020 election, more than 69% of votes cast in the election were done through either mail-in ballots or early in-person voting, according to election data compiled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s election data science lab.

By comparison, only 40% voted early in the 2016 election and 33% in the 2012 election, the data showed.

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House Republicans strike deal on motion to vacate, making it harder to oust speaker
House Republicans strike deal on motion to vacate, making it harder to oust speaker
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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening that House Republicans from across the conference struck a deal to raise the threshold for the motion to vacate — a procedure rank-and-file lawmakers can use to remove the speaker. The new agreement makes it harder to remove a speaker from the position.

The agreement would raise the threshold to force a vote on ousting a speaker from one member to nine members.

A one-member vote triggered the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and ultimately led to Johnson’s ascension to the speakership a little more than a year ago.

While the nine-member threshold makes it harder to oust a speaker, it does not completely remove the threat.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and Main Street Caucus Chairman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota — who negotiated the deal on Wednesday — appeared with Johnson at a press conference where they explained the change.

“We had an opportunity to set the motion to vacate at a higher than number one, that motion to vacate will be set at nine in return for getting rid of some amendments that probably would have divided this conference,” Johnson said.

He said the agreement allows Republicans to be “in a better position to move forward with the Republican agenda to make sure that Speaker Johnson, South Dakota Senate Leader John Thune and our President Donald Trump have an opportunity to go forward.”

“For me this is exactly how we’re supposed to come together,” Johnson said.

Harris said the change allows the conference to execute on Trump’s plans.

“We’ve been able to work across the conference to eliminate the controversial issues that could have divided us and move forward together to deliver on the President’s agenda. That’s it,” Harris said.

A little over a year ago, former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to remove McCarthy from the House speakership, plunging the chamber into chaos for weeks.

Earlier this year, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, threatening to oust Johnson just months after he ascended to the speakership. When she officially triggered a vote on her motion to oust Johnson, Democrats joined almost all Republicans to overwhelmingly reject her move.

House Republicans will are huddling Thursday morning where they’ll still have to ratify the agreement.

Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on as the House’s top job. On Wednesday, he said he was “delighted” and “honored” to be the nominee for speaker, saying “we’ll head into Jan. 3 to make all that happen.”

The chamber will vote on their rules package for the 119th Congress on Jan. 3, 2025, following the election of the speaker on the floor.

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